Year of the Lycanthrope
by instantnoir
Summary: "It occurs to me now that in all the time I spent crystal-gazing, I was staring into a full moon: a round, marbled white sphere holding every promise of change within." Werewolf rights activist Cora McClane has a single year to find the cure for lycanthropy. An impossible task even before she discovers she'll be working alongside her former professor and first love: Remus Lupin.
1. Chapter 1

_"Imagine that you only exist in your entirety for a handful of nights in your lifetime. And the rest of it you spend as a fragment—a piece of yourself—all the while knowing that your wholeness is a crime against the very definition of humanity._

 _Eventually, you come to terms with living as an abomination. Or you die trying."_

— _Subject 37_

* * *

I can tell you bearing witness to the change is the closest I've ever felt to god. There's something addictive about observing the moment in all its raw, visceral intimacy. Here the moon was just beginning to descend, a physical pull back to the horizon. The edges of the sky grew brighter, implying my safety but never guaranteeing it. And this is where I truly felt alive—these moments of extraordinary risk.

The wolf had been chasing the rabbit for miles. I've come to learn this is a hunting strategy, markedly human in nature—chasing an animal to the brink of exhaustion, till it collapses before you and you know irrefutably that you have won. The need for this confirmation is unique to the human species. I could tell the small creature had nearly reached this point, the muscles beneath its pale fur convulsing with overuse, ears quivering, eyes fearful and open wide. The animal would likely never understand it had never been in any danger. That the chase was just a game for the human inside the beast.

It bounded off into the trees as the wolf raised his head. I was close enough to see the textbook heaving overcome him—heightened oxygen intake in preparation for what would happen next. The body changes faster than you'd expect, once it's begun. The femurs and fibulas shorten, the ribcage contracts. The greatest modifications occur in the face, of course: the nostrils widen and the snout retracts, the teeth shrink and dull, and a full-body ripple through the musculature turns the wolf's fur once again to skin. The return to human form.

He collapsed to the forest floor, man again, and this is when I saw his face.

The next moment stretched to an impossible length as I stayed in my hiding place behind the ash tree and watched him lying crumpled there on the ground, the last of the tremors still moving down his bare thighs and up into his fingers, and part of me registered dimly that this was my last chance to go. Though I knew even as I thought it that the moment had branched off in two directions and I'd already made my decision. I watched the other iteration of me walk away, glancing back once to wonder what could have been.

The moon was gone. He raised his face and I stepped out to where he could see me, knowing better than to hide. I could see his eyes widen brightly as pale morning sunlight filtered through the trees. A deep exhaustion ringed them, but they were still the same earnest green.

"Remus, it's—"

"No, no," he laughed. Casually, as if I'd just waltzed through his office door. "Don't reintroduce yourself to me, Cora. Of course I know it's you."

There was a warmth coloring his tone that I hadn't expected. And then there were possibilities I hadn't given much thought to, realities that hadn't registered due to the shock of seeing him. Nudity was among them. I took off my outer robe and placed it on the ground in front of him, where he still lay prostrate.

"I—I'm sorry," I murmured, turning my back. The intensely personal aftermath of the change was washing over me and I felt guilty, like the voyeur I was. I wasn't used to it. Apologies were uncharacteristic for me.

"No matter," I could hear him say behind me. There was a shuffling as he arranged the robe around himself, a rustling of fabric. "And what is it you're doing out in the middle of the Scottish wilderness, Cora?" he asked, still with that tone of cheerfulness. It stood out in his voice, sounded unfamiliar. But maybe I'd just forgotten it in the two years we'd spent apart.

"Observational research." I tried to match the quality of my voice to his. "Read anything of mine lately?"

"Actually, yes." Fallen oak leaves crackled under his feet as he walked around to face me again, startling me. I hadn't expected him to dress so quickly. My black Ministry-issued robe fell at least a foot too short on him—I'd forgotten how tall he was, at six-two. "I've been keeping up with my former students' work, you could say, and yours is of interest for obvious reasons. I think you could also say I'm impressed."

Still keeping his distance, I observed. It struck me how alone we were, how empty the surrounding woods, the rabbit long since disappeared and all other animals silent. There were no birds here.

"That's kind of you, Remus." I cleared my throat. "And where have you been?"

"I was overseas for a bit, actually, after Snape outed me." He lowered his eyes, a gesture I did remember. "Needed to get away."

I had brief, unbidden flashes of a series of American women. Moonless non-wolf nights and dark rooms. The body I'd just seen atop a sequence of them, one after the other. Dominant, moving with an inhuman force. Eyes tightly closed, as if sealing the pleasure in. He wouldn't do that, of course. Not the Remus I'd known. But the images lingered in my mind, haunting the words that followed.

"Dumbledore asked me back last year," he was saying. "Things being the way they are, the Order needs all the help they can get."

"No more teaching?"

"I'm an out werewolf, Cora. What school would have me?"

"You loved it, though."

He shrugged. Trying, in that way he had, to avoid pity with a kind of desperation that almost made me look away from him entirely. "No one wants a werewolf teaching their children. You should know that better than anyone."

Another reference, again, to my work. Even if he was overstating his awareness of my research, I'd lobbied hard for the legislation that cordoned off a section of the Scottish wilds to provide a safe place for wolves to change. Wolfsbane was prohibitively expensive but the Ministry eventually realized that the death of innocents every full moon was worse. Separation from the rest of society one night a month was the temporary compromise, though my work was far from done. He had to have heard of this, at least; after all, here we were.

A breath of wind blew through, rustling the leaves and branches overhead. Remus pulled my robe tighter around his waist. "I should probably get back—"

"Where are you staying?"

"Just a room over some dingy pub back in the city. It's temporary." With Remus, I knew, it usually was. He stepped away, seemingly prepared to Apparate, then said, "I'd like to meet with you. At your offices, if that's possible."

There was a professionalism to his tone that couldn't go unnoticed. It felt too pointed, like he was trying to communicate something important to me without actually saying a word about it. I could imagine what that message might be. It wasn't what I wanted.

"Of course, Remus."

* * *

I was late to work again. Margaret snapped her gum at me when I came in, but I had a feeling she would've done that even if I'd been on time. I'd been required to take her on as an assistant a few weeks ago—a stipulation of the new grant received by the werewolf division. I, of course, didn't want an assistant, and my office had been last on her list, so we'd created a daily routine of mutually disliking each other until her assignment ran out. All I knew so far was that she was fresh out of Hogwarts, bored as a rule, and spectacularly clairvoyant.

"William's going to want to talk to you. Ten minutes or so from now. Something potion-related." She spun her chair to face the wall in our tiny office and pressed her black kitten heels against it. A cluster of scuffs around her feet spelled out a history of the habit. "Where were you?"

I threw my bag onto the desk across from hers. "Field work." The room already smelled of Droobles—a sickly cotton-candy scent reminiscent of childhood and nausea. "Any interviews?"

She slowly rotated back around to face me, revealing the gum's aquamarine hue on her tongue and lips. "No, but we've got someone to add to the registry as of this morning." Snap. "A four-year-old."

I sat down heavily, rubbing my hands across my eyes. As much as I'd gotten used to certain aspects of my job, it never got easier hearing about the young ones. They'd never remember their old life. Never know anything different. Even Margaret seemed almost fazed, pressing the wad of gum meditatively into her cheek for a brief and quiet moment.

"Greyback?" I asked.

"The mother wasn't sure."

"Who else, though?"

She shrugged and blew a small cobalt bubble. It detached from her lips with a pop and began its slow ascent to the ceiling as I watched.

"Well, I'll go talk to Will then," I sighed. "Let me know if anyone asks for me."

"There'll be someone around 11. Tall guy, hazelish eyes. Looks like he could use a good night's sleep."

No guarantees that this was Remus, of course—what visitors did we ever get to the department who _didn't_ need more sleep?—but I had a feeling.

"Thanks, Margaret." I took my notebook from the top drawer of my desk and walked out the way I'd come, relaxing a bit into the sterile yet familiar scent of the Ministry halls. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures was located on the bottom floor—of course, no subtlety there. We didn't have anything so fancy as a fountain near us, as they saved that kind of glamour for the lobby and the offices people were most likely to visit. But in the last two years there was something I'd come to love about our floor and that little room all the same. I'd worked hard for my job, every part of it. That couldn't be taken away from me.

Something whizzed by my ear as I walked toward the lift: a memo, of course, folded into the shape of a paper crane. Our office had no windows—an occasional source of panic for me—and so I loved these flapping imitations of wildlife, gentle reminders that the sky still existed every time I passed one by. I boarded the lift at the end of the hall with it, along with a few surly-looking goblins and a few more species of memo.

I'd been just casual enough, I decided. Last night technically hadn't been an assignment. If Margaret paid any kind of attention, she would've known that the moment I responded. It's true that my assignments occasionally sent me into the designated transition space to identify non-registered wolves making use of the area. More recently, however, I'd started Apparating into the forest even when I didn't need to, and technically wasn't supposed to. Almost every night. I hadn't told anyone about this, and until last night no one had ever seen me.

The goblins got off at the main floor, the cranes a few later, but I kept going up. Will's department—Experimental Potions and Charms—was as far away from my office as it was possible to be, on the top floor. After applying for over a hundred grants in the last two years I'd managed to secure the funds to contract another Ministry employee for the express purpose of creating the cure for lycanthropy. An impossible task on the tightest possible deadline: one year.

My father, at least, had been happy to hear about it, though not for the reason you'd expect. A prominent member of the Wizengamot, he viewed the focus of my job as a rather embarrassing distraction until I got on to what I was really going to do with my life. He'd been the first person I'd gone to when I realized we would need more money to even attempt reopening the cure project, and so he was also the first person to turn me down. Of course I'd kept asking, and of course he'd grown tired of it. Our relationship remained on thin ice, though this was far from the only reason.

After a year and the publication of several papers based on my werewolf interviews, I'd found another way. Dad had sent me a formal letter of congratulation when he heard about the grant, despite the fact that we worked in the same building and had lunch together every few weeks. His memos were folded from a thick, heavy parchment, the wings of which made great whooshing noises every time they moved.

Will's floor. As if to make up for the fact that the labs were entirely windowless, the hall that stretched out before me from the lift was capped by one long, enchanted skylight. Every time I looked up I was met with a sheer, bright blue. This was true regardless of both weather and the fact that the entire building was underground. Apparently the Ministry thought a constant sunny day was good for morale, though I personally found it a bit jarring at night. Never any moon.

The hall was half a mile long, at least, and the walls and floor were plated gratuitously in gold. I could see myself mirrored back in warm shades if I happened to look down. I often used this walk to imagine what I would do upon opening the door and discovering that Will had, in fact, created the cure for lycanthropy. At various points in the last few weeks I'd seen myself jumping, screaming, hugging, fainting, writing an announcement for the Daily Prophet, owling my father, ringing my mother, even running back to the lift and pressing every button out of sheer delirium and joy. But these reactions were so often tightly confined to my _own_ feelings in that moment—perhaps intentionally, as a way of protecting myself—that I'd never thought of Remus until today.

As I walked closer and closer to the lab I imagined how I'd tell him, the look on his face when I did. The version of him in my head was mysteriously wiped of exhaustion, looked something close to happy. He touched me, wrapped his arms around me when I gave him the news. I thought, absently, of how long it had been since the last time we'd touched, and then the fantasy dissolved in my mind, as none of it matched up with the person I'd run into the previous night or the distance he'd kept from me. I'd never understood how he could undergo such a vulnerable transformation right in front of me and somehow still feel so far away when we spoke afterwards. As if I had no claim on him, as if I'd seen this secret part of him but still knew nothing, was somehow still a stranger. Though now, I suppose, I was.

* * *

In another universe—the one where I was good at potions, and so became a potions master—I could see myself working quite comfortably in a lab. Will's assignment allowed him to work alone in a relatively spacious top-floor room, which seemed ideal to me. The solitary, spread-out nature of the work. As I entered the lab I was met with an excessive bubbling, a series of strange popping sounds, then a muffled groan of frustration followed by a worrisome shattering. I hurried around a table clustered with beakers and found Will standing behind several industrial-sized bags of ingredients, staring angrily at the ceiling.

"It went up," he said, by way of greeting, and I joined him in his upward gaze, where I saw that the remnants of a test tube stuck firmly to the tile ceiling, a sticky purple substance dripping from each broken edge.

"It went up," I agreed, which I'd quickly learned is all you could say when Will has failed, which was admittedly what this year had the greatest probability of being—one failure after another.

He'd mentioned when I hired him before that he could use a second pair of hands, two being more efficient, but the grant only covered one extra employee. I didn't know him very well yet, but he seemed to me to be of two minds about the cure project—an innately social personality in combat with his undeniable desire for a challenge. In the latter case, there was something to working alone: if we did manage to create a cure for lycanthropy, he could take all the credit. There'd no longer be any question as to his abilities—and there were many people now who doubted him, the Muggle-born boy of 24 who'd broken ground on a permanent immunity draught for Veritaserum. A project that wizards much older than he had been working on for years. It was clear why he'd submitted his application in this case, and I knew the small possibility of success was what kept him going.

"That was the antimony," he sighed. "I know we agreed to start with the lowest-grade stuff, but it's really beginning to feel like I'm wasting my time."

"We aren't trying to make things more complicated," I reminded him. "The whole point of the cure is accessibility, if and when it's made. We want anyone to be able to afford it."

"You don't think they'd just give it to people? Free?" He looked at me, a brief disappointment crossing his face. "No, yeah, I guess you're right." Another disillusioned sigh.

I took out the notebook. "Anything else you need me to order?"

"Aconite. Lots of it. And I guess a couple pints of myrrh oil, some more valerian root. I'm not particularly low on anything, but we'll be moving through the aconite at a pretty fast clip." Even with my cursory potions knowledge I knew why. It was the main ingredient for the wolfsbane potion, after all. "And, uh… any chance I could get a 24-pack of Red Bull?"

I looked steadily at him. "You want me to pool together the grant money in order to fuel your Muggle energy drink addiction?"

"Hey, I'm here way beyond the maximum hour requirement," he protested. "It'll keep me from collapsing into my cauldron. Think of it as a safety measure, really." I shook my head, biting back a smile as I added his request to the list.

"And speaking of safety measures, we need more spoons. There was, uh, a fire. Just a small one. More of a nuisance than anything else." He didn't directly point out the pile of melted-together spoons on the counter adjacent to the sink, but I connected the dots anyway, nodding assent.

To the untrained eye Will might've at this point seemed incompetent, but I'd done my research. He was a little offbeat, yes, but indisputably one of the best young potion masters alive. He'd also slept in the lab a handful of times already, and I knew that kind of dedication alone was worth his appointment.

"I'll place the orders today. You're doing great work, Will," I told him. We both pointedly avoided looking at the ceiling or the spoons. "We're right on track." I was not completely confident of this, actually—even less sure that we'd be anywhere close to a cure by this time next year, given our unfairly limited timeframe—but it sounded like the right thing to say.

"Yeah, no one ever said the cure for lycanthropy would happen in a day." He rolled his eyes as a drop of purple glanced down the side of his nose, sizzling quietly. "Or a few weeks."

* * *

Attempt #4

2 c finely ground aconite

1/2 tsp essence of dittany

1/4 c diced valerian root

1 bunch fluxweed

1 tbsp molten antimony

1 tsp powdered silver

1 c spirit of myrrh

3/4 c starthistle, shredded

8 5-cm strips wiggentree bark

1/4 c wormwood oil

Notes: Failure of explosive proportions. Must consider the phase and placement of the moon going forward—this may be the key.


	2. Chapter 2

" _Fear of something as innocuous as the moon. How exhausting it becomes—to go outside and not even have the luxury of wondering the shape it'll take. It isn't a ghost, or a spider—it's a guarantee. The night always comes and with it your reminder. That accursed pale orb ensures you'll never forget what you are."_

— _Subject 23_

* * *

I could talk about the panic. Searing waves of dread building up inside of me so that I couldn't open my mouth for fear that it would all come pouring out of me in a garbled rush: everything I was afraid of.

Fear was a black hole. It was a series of violent vibrations that took my body over, a kind of possession. I saw my mother and father die in a thousand different ways. Hung, tortured, burned, eaten, starved. We were learning the full spectrum of what could be waiting for us outside Hogwarts' walls in Defense, so it was easy to imagine falling prey to those things.

My seventh year I had to leave class because the shaking, in those moments, became so extreme I could no longer hold a quill or raise my hand, let alone follow what the professor was saying. Once I saw something I could not stop seeing it; it was exactly like being told not to think of the moon, and then finding oneself unable to visualize anything but. None of my classmates were ever paying close enough attention to notice my reactions. Meanwhile I saw their deaths, too—each desk going up in flames as I passed them by.

I began to view Hogwarts as little more than a network of hiding places: the balcony down the hall from Dumbledore's office, the empty broom closet near the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, the window seat in the astronomy tower and the way its stained glass bathed me in light of different colors. A collection of spaces to find my breath again.

By staying silent I imagined I was protecting those close to me from the things I'd seen. Keeping them from happening, even. My sacrifice to save them. It never occurred to me that there was another possibility, another option: reaching out for help. My mother had raised me singly, with a resilience I envied. She was a witch who flouted any traditional path for her kind, left my father just a year into the marriage, ran a boarding house and slept with Muggles, shared their cigarettes, kept her maiden name through it all. But of course there were things we did not talk about, and so at seventeen I still believed my mother had no fears at all. The fear lived inside of me, for both of us. It began to eat me alive.

Seventh year was easily the worst: the first in a series of Azkaban breakouts, Sirius Black. I remember the strange gravity I felt when I heard the news, a rush of acceptance. Of course, yes, he'll be coming here. I woke up over and over not screaming but perfectly silent, my heart in my throat, blocking every sound I could have made.

I can tell you what I was afraid of. But to this day I can't tell you _why_ I was so afraid. For as long as I could remember I'd been riddled with a general sense of unease, the firm belief that something was coming, coming for me—something I wouldn't be able to stop. And when I look back on this period of my life that feeling is one of the only things I can remember.

That, and Remus Lupin.

It started with the night of the break-in. We'd all been ushered into the Great Hall and gifted a plush purple sleeping bag each. Wrapped up in it a few minutes later I told myself everything was fine, that we were safe in the castle with Dumbledore, that Sirius Black would be caught. But my brain didn't listen and my thoughts raced ahead of me. I can imagine Remus saw it all unfolding on my face from across the room, though I'll never know how long he watched before he came to me. He squatted down so his face was level with mine. I'd been trying to keep quiet. At this point my breath was coming in short quick bursts, a gasp in place of an inhale.

"Come with me," he said.

The hyperventilation had rendered me light-headed; my legs felt very far away from my chest, possibly detached altogether. I remember looking down when they wouldn't move, wondering if they belonged to someone else. I also remember the colors of very particular things: the deep knit indigo of his cardigan, creases at his elbows the color of a robin's egg. He took my arm and led me to the Grand Staircase, which was deserted. All the professors were spread out across the floors themselves, searching. No one was interested in moving between.

He put his hands on my shoulders and pressed down, so I was forced to sit on the topmost step. I remember how the stairs wound and echoed, how I'd never before heard the room this quiet, or seen it so empty. I looked down because I was embarrassed and unable to look into his eyes. The stairs above me creaked and swiveled in the silence. It was then I realized that the other sound was me, still unable to control my breathing. Hushed little gasps for air.

"What is it you're afraid of, Cora?"

"Where do I begin?" I broke out into nervous giggles, accustomed to falling back on dark humor in troubled times. It was strange, the way my laughter stretched. In the dark I couldn't see the ceiling of that big, big room.

He persisted. "What are you afraid of on this night in particular?

I stopped laughing and looked at him. He was squatting on the stair below my feet, his elbows on his knees, fingers tight around the ends of his wand. Remus had a way of looking exhausted yet somehow also incredibly strong; I think it was the scars. He looked back expectantly, his eyes a gentle, unassuming green.

"Sirius Black," I admitted. Hearing myself say the name aloud did not feel like a kind of summoning, as I had expected, but almost a little silly.

"And what is it that you imagine he'll do, if he finds you?"

"He'll kill me, won't he? Didn't he kill twelve Muggles?"

He ignored the second question. "Will it hurt, dying?"

I tried to remember what I actually knew of the Killing Curse, surprised that my breathing slowed even as I did so. "I suppose not, from an academic standpoint. It's a matter of being alive one minute, and not the next."

"And why are you so afraid of death?" It was impossible to quantify the way he looked at me then. Like he truly wanted me to explain. Like he truly wanted to understand.

I thought. "I suppose it's the not-knowingness of it. I don't like not knowing. Not having the answers. I'd rather be told in advance what it'll be like, what it'll feel like. So I can prepare, I guess. And I can't do those things with death. Not really."

My next realization was that he wasn't looking at me just then, but rather some space beyond me, beyond any of the stairs. I had a feeling that even if I turned I wouldn't see whatever it was that he was seeing in that moment.

He moved beside me, sitting to my left and flattening his palm on the stone between us. "I'll make you a promise, Cora. We'll stay awake tonight, you and I. I'll look one way and you'll look the other, and I'll tell you if I see death coming. And I promise you'll be prepared when it does." He smiled. "Though I doubt that moment is tonight. I think most likely it's a very long time from now."

"A hundred years?"

"At least." Remus laughed, and even then I had the sense that he faced off with his demons every day and won, though I didn't yet know how or why. I suppose there were always ghosts present. Even in that laugh.

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

I said yes.

And so this was how I came to know Remus—not just as a teacher but as a human being—one long night on the staircase, looking in opposite directions for almost nine hours straight. This visual distance somehow made it easier for both of us to talk, in the end. A sort of private sanctuary I've never been able to replicate with anyone else. I don't think we'd have said some of the things we did if we'd been facing each other, privy to the hurt and longing that can contort a mouth or press the eyes closed. That night I told him about my mother and my father and the fear I'd always lived with, what I'd overcome and who I'd loved. And there were things I didn't realize until after, in the days that followed—how guarded he was and the release in his voice when he let some small truth slip.

Over time the suspicion began to build that there was another gravity at play here; maybe we were always going to be drawn to each other, he and I. Perhaps there was something of himself he found in me that night.

* * *

"He's here."

"Who?" I'd just walked back into the office, still distracted by Will's potion mishap, not to mention the memo that had managed to tangle itself in my hair on the elevator.

Margaret rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed to have to repeat herself. "The tall guy." There was fresh polish drying on her fingernails, a complicated gradient of pink and red that had clearly replaced any actual work she was supposed to be doing in my absence.

I walked past her desk to the open door of the interview room, where I could already see Remus standing inside, circling the table rather than sitting at it. An old habit. I hung back a moment longer, as I often did, to observe the werewolf out of his element. He was dressed this time, in a threadbare tweed suit I swear I recognized from Hogwarts. Remus was a proper dresser, but his clothes were often outdated because he could rarely afford new ones. Though he didn't know it, this was true of many of the people who'd paced this same room before. More like him than he knew.

I cleared my throat, announcing myself as I closed the door behind me.

"Cora, hello." He seemed a little uncomfortable, though I wished he wouldn't. He was still standing next to the chair, now motionless, looking at me.

"You're allowed to sit, Remus," I laughed, attempting to break the awkwardness. I didn't know why it should be awkward. Or I did, and was avoiding it. I hadn't decided yet.

"Right." The old metal chair made a terrible screeching sound as he pulled it out. He rested both arms on the square wooden table in front of him, looking around our dimly lit spare room with his lips pressed into a tight line. "Looks a bit like you take your decorating cues from the Muggle police interrogation rooms."

"We don't exactly have the money for paint and picture frames." The overhead light blinked, as if to emphasize my point. "It does the job, though."

"You interview my kind in here?"

"That's right, for my research."

He cocked his head. The waning light was doing strange things to his scars, making him look almost unfamiliar. A stranger at my table.

"And what do you ask about?"

"Pretty much anything they let me. Nothing's off the table, as long as they're comfortable talking about it." I nudged my notebook purposefully. "Actually, I'd like to talk to you at some point, now that you're back…"

"We'll talk about that." His fringe was too long, fell into his eyes when he leaned forward. Did he cut his own hair, I wondered? "But actually, Cora, I came here to ask for your help."

"Me?"

"Yes. I'll get right to it, then." He shifted in his chair; the metal creaked. "Since Voldemort's return, Fenrir Greyback's been recruiting more and more werewolves to join forces with him. We aren't allowed to become Death Eaters, of course—" and here he snorted— "But he makes them do terrible things all the same." I thought silently of the names Margaret and I had been adding to the registry, the separate death toll we were obligated to keep per Ministry requirements. _Werewolf Casualties._

"I've had the chance to travel, talk to these other wolves, and I get the sense that many of them are joining Voldemort because they truly feel they have no other options. Between the laws Umbridge passed a few years back and Greyback's reputation, it's almost impossible for us to get a job these days." He bit his lip. "I don't know, it may sound a bit silly at a time like this, but I thought you and I could join forces. Fight the legislation. Do our part to show the wizarding world that the wolves can control themselves, can lead normal lives. I think they need that reminder as much as the rest of the world does. And I think with your publications and your research and, Merlin, even the fact that you're human… they're all more likely to listen to me if you're on my side."

It was the last thing I'd expected him to ask.

I opened my mouth to say yes, to say absolutely, of course, that I'd been waiting for an opportunity like this, when he added one last thing.

"Associating with me in the public eye, though, Cora… I don't know that it'll go well for you. I have to warn you. We've entered an era where open prejudice has become commonplace and I… I just want you to know what you're getting yourself into."

"I get it, Remus."

He nodded and moved to stand. "I'll give you time to think about it, then—"

"No need. I'll do it."

"Right." He half-smiled, reached out to shake my hand. "Thank you, Cora."

* * *

Margaret watched Remus leave, her legs propped up on the desk like she was one of those Muggle PIs my mother loved so much. I could never read her. Though Margaret herself had come with a kind of disclaimer ("Please be advised your new employee possesses abilities of the psychic variety, and may or may not know the time and manner of your death."), I was unclear as to how _much_ she could see, or how much she knew of what had already occurred. Not just in the way of the general future, of our office, but me—my life, the people in it, and everything that had happened to me. Could she see, I wondered as I watched her watch him, everything that year had meant to me? And what of the unadulterated rage that had finally spilled over the last time we'd seen each other, before he left—could she see where we'd left it? What crossed his mind when he looked at me?

She swiveled back to face me, a sizable paper hawk balanced in her palm.

"From your dad," she offered, though I could've discerned that myself from the impossibly rigid shape of the letters on the outside, the regal tilt of the bird's head.

I took it from her, noticing the edges were already slightly bent. "Did you read it?"

She shrugged and opened a desk drawer to toss something inside, prompting me to realize that I had no earthly idea what she kept in her desk.

"Well, you read it first," I said after skimming the first few lines. "There's the whole matter of dibs to contend with. Do you want to go instead?"

" _Please_ , Cora. The only way I'd go to one of those Ministry mixers is dressed up as an Inferius."

* * *

Here's the thing you need to understand about my father: he always wanted everything in his life to be a certain way, but he also desperately wanted me to be a part of it. After my parents split when I was a child, I'd grown up at the boarding house with Mum and only saw my father a handful of times in my life. He cried at my Hogwarts graduation—not for all of the usual reasons a parent cries, but because he was there for someone he didn't recognize, didn't know at all, and that unnerved him. The fact that I could have his blood running through my veins and still be a stranger. He had a kind of epiphany that day, dear old Xavier, and so for the last two years he and I had embarked on a shaky kind of adult friendship, since I was fairly insistent that I'd gotten this far without a father and wasn't suddenly about to start needing one. At the same time, it was hard for him to fit something as complicated as a daughter into a life he'd spent years building just the way he liked it.

He was initially thrilled to hear I'd gotten a job at the Ministry—he'd tell anyone who would listen that he eventually came to his position on the Wizengamot by, yes, the actual mailroom—but when I shared more information about the position over one of our occasional in-Ministry lunches he did a terrible job of concealing his disappointment. Werewolves, clearly, hadn't even crossed his mind, and yet now that I was bringing them to the forefront he was suddenly full of opinions I didn't know he had. Even two years later he'd only recently stopped offering to get me transferred to another department, now that I'd "gotten my foot in the door." In darker moments I amused myself by imagining how Margaret would feel about her unexpected promotion.

Still, it made Dad happy when I went to his parties—formal to-dos left over from a world that the older generation refused to leave behind—and I did want to make him happy, in spite of everything, most of the time. So I knew what I'd be doing that Friday night, though there were no guarantees I'd be dressing appropriately.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thank you, Laerthel, for your review! And thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited, and read.

* * *

" _Letting yourself forget how to love… it's the only solution. I know how that sounds, but I've tried the alternative."_

— _Subject 14_

* * *

Remus insisted on coming separately. _I despise events like these_ , he'd written, uncharacteristically vehement. _I know the kind of people who'll be there, and I know what they'll think of me. But maybe you're right, Cora. Maybe we're entering an era of necessary evils._

He hadn't meant it the way I took it, but it stung anyway, thinking of my father as a _necessary evil_. After all, how could something like that not be passed down in blood?

Not yet wanting to go inside, I lingered for a moment on the sprawling marble porch of my father's manor. It was the first week of September and darkness was coming earlier every day; I could already see the fingers of sunset stretching greedily across the horizon. A few people walked past me, murmuring hellos—all people I recognized, but no one whose names I could remember. The only attendees who ever stuck out in my mind were the string of suspiciously eligible men my father had introduced me to since I started coming to these events by myself. For the life of me I still couldn't tell if he was trying to set me up or get me transferred to a different department. But Dad was like that, I'd come to realize—always blending work and relationship together until you could no longer tell the difference.

I didn't see Remus at all; it was more a matter of him being suddenly beside me, almost as if he'd somehow sensed exactly the space to apparate into. I jumped.

"I called to you," he laughed. "As I walked up." I hadn't even noticed. "What on earth were you thinking about?"

"Good to see you too," I retorted. "I was just contemplating the fine line between good and evil."

"How fitting," he sighed wearily, pushing the majestic oak door open. "Ah, parties."

I'd barely spent enough time in my father's home to be comfortable within its walls while it was empty. Now, it was pressed wall-to-wall with bodies. Pristine bodies, overly groomed bodies, every open neckline glistening never with sweat but a fine mist of cologne, perfume. We could hear a hundred different conversations occurring simultaneously, deep and urgent and high-pitched voices all mingling together. An intricate silver chandelier hung over our heads in the entrance hall, alight with gently pulsing blue candles that cast everyone in a kind of underwater glow. I was close enough to Remus to feel him tense beside me, at which point I realized we were still framed in the doorway, blocking the path of the guests behind us.

"Never too early to duck out, I always say," Remus offered, glancing at me. I shook my head faintly, unable to suppress a smile.

"It'll be fine, Remus," I said cheerily, leaving the threshold. Dad, of course, found us before we'd even reached the pyramid of wineglasses floating by the stairs.

"Sweetheart, I'm so happy you came." He kissed both my cheeks—first the right, then the left, which I still found startling—before pulling back to look at me, as he often did, as though expecting that I'd grown taller since the last time we'd seen each other. His silver hair was long in the front, arcing across his forehead in a gentle wave, while shaved close on the sides. His eyes were a light lavender, which no one had ever explained to me, and his lips were upturned in a characteristic smile.

"And you've brought someone!" Dad squinted. "Are you… Remus?"

Remus hesitated, then extended his hand. "Good to meet you, Mr. McClane."

Dad gazed at the hand before him distractedly for a moment before shifting his glass and accepting Remus' greeting. Something about the gesture made me uncomfortable, such formalities looking out of place on Remus for a reason I couldn't identify.

"Dad, Remus and I are working together." I grasped for language he would appreciate—lofty, extravagant, working toward nigh-impossible goals, though even as I spoke I was unsure whether I was trying to impress him, protect Remus, or defend myself. "An alliance of sorts. He's going to help with my research, making new contacts. We're working toward improving the public perspective of werewolves."

No use drawing it out, after all. The only reason Dad would recognize Remus had to be the _Daily Prophet_ 's borderline gleeful coverage of the revelation that Dumbledore had knowingly hired a werewolf to teach 11-year-olds magic. And Dad read the _Prophet_ every morning, at the end of his unnecessarily lengthy dining room table, over a steaming cup of nettle tea.

Dad swished whatever was in his wineglass, smile persisting, but something about the interaction began to feel distinctly false to me.

"Always happy to hear about my daughter's new strides in her leadership role." He swigged cheerfully. "Likely to be Minister of Magic before the decade's out—what d'ya think, Remus?"

Remus glanced over at me bemusedly. "That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, Mr. McClane."

"You're welcome to take over as my campaign manager," I muttered.

"Well, it was just excellent to meet you, chap." Dad clapped him on the shoulder, clearly startling him. I could only think of how long Dad had stood round with me in the past, trapping me in the presence of different men—younger ones—asking about the intricacies of whatever asinine job they found themselves holding at the time, regaling us with uninteresting stories about a group effort by the Wizengamot to recreate the Muggle game of golf. _Call me Xavier, please,_ he'd always laugh, familiarity his easy currency. The lengths he went to so these other men would feel comfortable in his presence.

Remus looked at me uncertainly as Dad walked off without another word. I couldn't say anything. A trio of crystal goblets floated past us, followed by a pitcher full of some ruby liquid with the consistency of blood. Jazz began to play, seemingly emanating from the walls. A woman crooned something about the futility of love.

"What are we doing here again?" he asked as I plucked one of the glasses from the air.

"We talked about this—changing public perspective." I peered into my glass suspiciously. "Think of tonight as practice for what you want to do. Some of these people sit on the Wizengamot with my dad—they're the ones who weigh the integrity of the laws. Sometimes even change them. I know it's stupid, but it matters. What they think of you matters. If our ultimate goals are a cure and dismantling prejudiced legislation—"

A drunk couple waltzed between us, staggering Remus' surprise. "Wait, you didn't tell me you're working on a—"

"Cora! So good to see you back here!" Cyril, another one of Dad's crosses between work and play. He had unconvincing blonde hair—too big, too yellow—and teeth that shone white when he smiled. He was holding two glasses, but he set one down to give my hand a vigorous shake. He headed up the Department of Magical Transportation, if I remembered right, where he spent most of his time in his oversized office signing forms and poorly masking his alcoholism. Even as he greeted me, I could see his his bright blue eyes slipping over in Remus' direction, correcting back to me, then sliding again. I wasn't his true target. But perhaps tonight that was the goal.

* * *

As the night waned on we were approached by a growing number of my father's coworkers. No one ever stayed very long, and the questions they asked Remus—who they all continued to recognize as a werewolf before ever introducing themselves—were of an increasingly invasive variety. (There was one in particular from a sitting member of the Wizengamot about the nature of male genitalia in the werewolf state that made me blush deeply red just from being in proximity to the question, let alone Remus' answer.)

The phenomenon of his popularity was fascinating to watch, especially from the perspective of an invested party. After all, none of these people would have spoken to Remus had they passed him on the street or in their workplace, and indeed a few of those present had even been instrumental in approving the legislation that made it so difficult for him to get a job. Yet something about his presence in their midst despite all of this suggested another possibility—that _someone_ had deemed him worthy of an invitation. And observing from a distance they could see his neatly combed hair. Closer up, the undeniable kindness in his eyes. And so I think the questions were a layered venture: testing the possibility of his civility, but also quenching their own curiosity, for most of them had never knowingly spoken to a werewolf in their lives.

The part that shouldn't have surprised me was Remus' behavior. He was calm, humorous, laughed at every right moment, deferring to his conversation partner whenever possible. Remus had always been a listener by nature, and it seemed this was what the people wanted. For all his avoidance and excuses he was actually quite skilled at handling multilayered social interactions, which in a way made sense considering how attuned he was, generally, to the feelings of others. I pulled back as the night went on, talking to almost no one, obsessively watching him and them together, nursing my drink, daring myself to hope. I could relax watching him relax, to a degree, although I could tell he would never let his guard down completely—not here, anyway—and I could see something in his eyes that didn't quite trust, couldn't quite believe.

Hours later, something changed. In an abrupt, violent way—something I should have seen coming, even from afar, had I not been distracted by hope. Remus was engaged with a stooped, dark-haired wizard when another man thrust himself aggressively into their space.

"I have a question for you," the man snarled. He was quite old, streams of white hair flying loose from a formerly neat ponytail, a ribbon trailing blood-red into his locks like a head wound. I didn't recognize him. One of the few women at the party was trying to restrain him—a tall, gray-haired witch with worried blue eyes—but she stumbled on her heels and he burst from her grasp. The smaller wizard hurriedly backed away as the interloper stalked the remaining space between himself and Remus, fingers compressed into fists. I abandoned the woman I'd been chatting with and moved toward them, panic curling in my throat.

"What is it?" Remus asked evenly. The white-haired man was just an inch from his face, their noses practically touching. Remus' eyes were inscrutable. Everyone in the room was watching, unmoving. It was getting harder to push past; they all wanted the best view of whatever would next unfold.

"Do you _like_ the taste of human flesh?" The white-haired man's lips curled. There were several gasps from the onlookers. I pushed a tall man in purple robes out of my way, trying to reach Remus. Even from my distance I could feel how the words would strike him. Everything that would unfurl from this moment. What was being undone.

Remus cleared his throat deliberately. "Sir, I don't—"

"You can play dress-up and drink with the best of us, but I know you," growled the white-haired man. "You'll always be an animal."

I froze in the crowd. It didn't sound like anyone else was breathing, either. If I craned my neck I could see around the few people remaining in front of me. There was a flash of fingers. I saw Remus' hand close around the man's neck for a brief instant. Nails digging half-moon imprints into weak, pliant flesh. Someone shouted; there was a surge forward. People moving toward them for the first time. And the look on the white-haired man's face then—not frightened at all, but euphoric, gleeful. As if he believed he'd been proven right.

With the rest of the crowd I finally pushed my way to where they stood, but all that remained of the encounter was a single cloth napkin, floating gently to the ground. Remus was gone.

* * *

"You can't just leave like that," I panted as I stumbled into his flat, my stomach swirling. I always apparated a little more messily than I liked when I was upset, had even splinched once after a bad fight with my mother. It was hard to keep a clear picture in my mind of where I was going, where I wanted to be. I could never quite stay calm.

"I didn't ask you to follow me," he said coldly. I think on another night he would've been embarrassed that I followed him home—Remus was overwhelmingly private, liked places he could call just his own.

"What, you think I'd rather be back there? With any of _them_?" I looked dizzily around the room, trying to orient myself. A desk, a chair, a thin mattress shoved in the corner. The bookshelf loaded. Dark curtains drawn over bay windows. We were fighting in the dark.

"You tell me, Cora—you asked me to be there."

"Do you think I personally interviewed my dad's friends beforehand? Honestly I don't even think he likes them all himself." Bile was rising in my throat. I swallowed. "Look, I'm sorry. Tonight was supposed to be civilized. It was supposed to be you and I showing the people of my father's world that the werewolves can behave themselves. Are just the same as everyone else."

He laughed. "I'm sure they love me now."

I rolled my eyes. "What you did was justified. It's him they'll remember."

He turned to face me. I still couldn't see his eyes in the dark. "Stop dismissing my behavior," he said stonily. "Is that what you're going to do—run back to the party and excuse it all away for me? Just remind them the full moon is next week. They have the privilege of forgetting."

"And what then, Remus, once you've finished validating every stereotype they've created for you?" I shook my head. "I don't understand. You asked for my help. The more I think about tonight it seems like you created your own self-fulfilling prophecy. You didn't even want to come."

"Right. Because this is the effect I have when I do. I bring out the worst in people." He groaned in frustration, threw himself into the lone chair and buried his head in his hands. We were silent for a moment, at which point I noticed his sole decoration: a small wall calendar hanging above the bed, the phases of the moon drawn neatly into the right-hand corner of each dated square. Did he look at it every morning?

Remus said something, but his voice was quiet, strained. I couldn't hear his question through his fingers.

"Why did you ask me to come?" he repeated. His voice was almost strangling the words as they came out.

"What do you mean?"

The hands came down like a curtain; I could just make out his expression. The easygoing smile of the party's early hours was gone. He looked exhausted.

"You know what I mean."

I took a breath. "To change the perspective of—"

"I know what you _said_ ," he interrupted. "I know the damned line, Cora. But people are miraculous. They can have many motivations. You can want more than one thing."

I couldn't stand the darkness anymore. "Lumos," I whispered. A soft light emanated from the tip of my wand, finally illuminating Remus' thick copper hair, twin bloodshot eyes. He looked away from the brightness. Shadows from the legs of his chair stretched away from me, across the floor. He clasped his hands, broad fingers moving restlessly. His left shoe was untied.

"I just want to say," he continued, carefully, "it can't be that way for us, Cora."

"What are you—"

"I've been with the wolves, see. Intermittently, these last two years. And I've learned about what is manageable and what isn't. What one can expect from a life like mine." His clothes looked especially threadbare in the unforgiving light of my wand. I fixed my eyes on the collar of his white shirt, the way its edges were starting to fray. He cleared his throat. "Whatever tenuous thing might have existed between us at Hogwarts… it's not sustainable. I know my kind. I know myself. We—"

"Remus—"

He held up a hand. "No. Let me finish. We have to remain emotionally separate, you and I. We can't… I can't. And although I may have felt something for you… at some point—" and here he paused to inhale, a deep and shuddering gasp, as if he recognized in that instant that it was the first time he'd ever admitted this aloud— "It was never something that could last."

In the dim light he looked smaller than I'd ever seen him, so forlorn. I could have knelt before him. Made promises, exceptions. In that moment a litany of charms ran through my head, even a curse—god, if only I could put my own words in his mouth, _imperio_ , make him take back everything he'd said, then maybe I could have escaped the feeling that was creeping up inside of me. The rise of panic, the clutch of fear, everything I'd been ignoring, tamping down, fighting since I saw him in the forest seven days ago—I hadn't realized what I wanted until he denied it. And I wanted it so much.

I disapparated.

* * *

I surfaced in the forest seconds later where I knew, unequivocally, that I was the only human being for a hundred and forty-two miles in all directions. The moon hung tauntingly, a knife of silver carving the sky.


	4. Chapter 4

" _Theoretically it's incredible. I have the ability to physically transform into another animal—do you know how few animagi there are? How rare that is? If it weren't for the dire consequences, the hunger… In rare moments I still try to give myself the room to be amazed. My body always comes back to me, in spite of everything."_

— _Subject 29_

* * *

I should talk about the day I found him.

Of course to know Remus is to spend your life finding him over and over again, to uncover new parts of him endlessly, and be willing to search him out once more when he disappears. He is a man comprised of buried pieces, always partially obscuring himself from the view of others.

After the night on the staircase—Black's night—we grew closer in ways we both actively avoided addressing. First we were meeting so he could walk me through extra credit assignments, allowing for my accelerated improvement in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Then we were meeting so he could help me with regular homework—Ancient Runes, NEWT-level Charms, Arithmancy (though I was arguably more skilled in the latter than he)—until eventually we were just meeting. For lunch or in his office, wandering through the shops of Hogsmeade on a quiet weeknight. I'm not sure what we would have said to anyone who asked why we were together. Through all of this, it seemed crucial to make him laugh. And in those early days we laughed often.

I didn't allow myself to examine the relationship too closely. Whether it was strange for us to spend so much time together, if anyone else had noticed. Time with him always felt too good to be true, like the version of myself I was when I was with him eclipsed any of the others before it, and I began to think of our connection as a bird with delicate wings: if you got too close, tried to examine it for flaws, it would fly away. I came to realize that even the idea of such an absence was the last thing I wanted.

Even then I did know, on some level, that Remus was sick. Not just sick but chronically ill, over and over. He'd only just seem to come back into himself again before weakening once more. It was something about him that I'd gotten used to over the course of fall term, though this was another thing I never examined too closely. He seemed embarrassed by his weakness, and over time I realized the greatest kindness I could offer him was simply pretending not to notice it at all. Though this became difficult as the months waned and the air grew colder and he was still so pale, growing thinner.

When he was sick we stayed in, drinking hot black tea in the confines of his office or gazing out of windows in whatever quiet part of the castle we found ourselves, talking quietly. I was keenly aware of the distance between us in those moments. He always kept me removed from him to some degree, seemingly as a measure of self-control—or perhaps self-protection—that never wholly dissolved. When he was sick the gap between us widened. He began to feel unreachable in ways I couldn't explain, even as we spent more time together.

December of my seventh year was cold on multiple counts, as Mum and I still weren't speaking. An obsessive through and through, she'd settled upon a particularly unsavory boyfriend earlier that year. Leonard masked his unscrupulous nature with a thin veneer of charm I'd learned early on to see right through, despite my mother's inexplicable passions for the type. He dressed expensively, excused any questionable behaviors with a flashy white smile, and got his friends to do his dirty work for him. In fact, that summer he'd taken to meeting with his entourage in the parlor of Mum's boarding house—I would've assumed they were Death Eaters if not for the fact that their bikes were consistently falling apart in ways magic could've resolve in seconds.

If the very nature of him and his no-good friends wasn't bad enough, Leonard had unsuccessfully tried to trap me in an unoccupied bedroom with him the week before I left for school. I loved my mother unconditionally and wanted her to be happy—find love or whatever the hell she was searching for—but she didn't seem as in control as she once was. Her past lovers would never have tried something like that with me, knowing Magdalena Sweeney as well as they did. But the people in her life were increasing markedly in their volatility. I couldn't tell whether she was turning a blind eye to certain unsavory behaviors or just helplessly letting them unfurl. I was pretty sure, in any case, that his meetings were of a crime-planning nature, and they were scaring away the law-abiding clientele. I said as much to her after squirreling out of Leonard's grasp and escaping to her room in the attic. I'd never expected that she would side with him—call me a liar. Call me jealous.

So yes, I was staying with my mostly absentee father for Christmas my seventh year. And this was before his parental epiphany at graduation, so I could be fairly certain it'd be a lonely holiday.

Maybe all of this goes to motivation for why I spent so much time with Remus. Maybe I'm just trying to curry favor or sympathy by telling you the story of Leonard, though I've never had much patience for either. But the point of all this is that I'd grown more and more comfortable going to my professor in times of distress. When I had questions, when things happened that I couldn't understand—or didn't want to on my own. His presence became a salve, a safety, a fixture. Remus could make sense of the world when I failed to, or at least make something up that was good enough to convince me in the meantime. Yet not until this night did I consider that Remus might have his own anxieties, his own fears. You can imagine how it all crescendoed when I found him.

Packing was what did it. Seventeen years with my mother had been equal parts an adventure and a master class in repression. Holding a pair of ripped jeans there in the seventh-year Hufflepuff house dormitory I felt a sudden wave of futility sweep through me in a rush, an overwhelming feeling that my mother would never leave this man, and that if she did there would be another, that she would always choose someone else over me, that I had been the only constant in the whirlwind of her life and yet, somehow, this was not enough. Trelawney had never conclusively told me whether I possessed the Sight but this sensation felt the way I'd always imagined a premonition would. Certain in a way that was physically painful.

Suddenly I ached. The tremors followed quickly. At this point at least I was accustomed to them—my body's rejection of a reality it deemed too extreme. I abruptly laid face-down on my bed, atop my neat piles of clothes. Face in my shirts, a hand on my underwear, pants beneath my thighs. My thoughts jittered and raced. Classes had finished today, at least, and I was the only one left in my room that night. I began to inhale deeply, trying to ride out these bodily sensations of abandonment, but my mind refused to accept the idea of my mother's rejection as temporary. I remembered what Remus had said to me about voicing these moments, reaching out when panic struck. Jolting upright, still shaking, I decided I would look for him.

It was late—after curfew—but Hogwarts was mostly empty at that point and I'd lived in the castle long enough by then to know how to avoid being seen. Lumos was a rookie's mistake; you had to feel your way through the castle, know which halls to avoid, always looking out for the two vindictive red beams of a certain cat's eyes. Of course there was still the problem of my breathing, having to muffle it, the tingling sensation caused by hyperventilation sending pins and needles down my legs and into my numb feet. After a while I was running on anvils, not heels and toes.

The classroom door was never locked. I'd never come this late before, but it didn't even cross my mind at the time that I might be unwelcome, that Remus, private as he was, might not be disposed to entertaining visitors. As I walked to the back of the room, gazing up blankly at the enormous skeleton that hung suspended above the neat rows of desks, I thought of my mother. My father. And for the first conscious time in my seventh year, I let myself acknowledge the searing loneliness I felt. How disconnected. How different. I couldn't think of what to do with this feeling. How many of us do, at seventeen?

The first time I knocked on his office door no answer came. No noise at all, in fact. I'd never felt scared in that classroom before but as I stood at the door and looked behind me I felt haunted, somehow, struck by the ominous slant of moonlight through windows that were never fully shuttered. I knocked again, filling with a trepidation I couldn't explain. A growing sense that I should not be there, should never have left my bedroom. But at this point, of course, it was too late.

There are only a few things I remember clearly after opening the door. Certain details crystallized at that moment in my mind, became permanent fixtures and never left.

I saw him. The werewolf. At first I couldn't connect what I was seeing with any explanation that made sense. The werewolf is not simply a wolf, of course—nothing that could be mistaken for a dog. Crouched underneath Remus' desk was another version of him entirely. A being with a canine, elongated face, pointed ears set back in the skull, limbs too long and all folded up into the concave torso to fit within his hiding place. Not like any animal I'd seen before, yet I knew instinctively what it was.

I stared blankly, not knowing how to react. Where was Remus? I thought desperately. Where was he?

But maybe I'd always known. In any case, I know that night he looked out at me from beneath the table, those green eyes—and this was how I recognized him, the eyes—and we both realized that whatever existed between us had fractured into some new form. I knew unequivocally that we could never go back, that this was the reckoning we'd been gravitating toward for some time.

There was no real need for it, given his wolfsbane state, but I ran anyway.

* * *

In the weeks that followed my father's party I threw myself into researching the cure. When I wasn't in the office I was in Will's lab, often relegated to a wooden stool in a musty corner of the room to read lengthy debates on whether silver actually had any effect on wolves, as well as the origins of the three different names for wolfsbane. (Will, it seemed, didn't actually trust me to help when it came to the brewing process.) I bought ingredients in the largest amounts we could afford, amassing frayed burlap sacks and tinted glass jars until one day he looked around the apothecary I'd created and said, "Enough, Cora."

Will couldn't understand the sudden fervor of my efforts, often illustrating this with quirked eyebrows and the occasional great sigh. Margaret, I think, could at least discern that my long hours were not generating from a healthy place.

"You need to take care of yourself, Cora," I remember her saying to me one evening. It was cold for September in London and she was sliding a manticore fur coat around her shoulders, staring hard at me across the tiny room we shared. I was in the middle of a draft for—against my better judgment—a Quibbler column on the subject of werewolf employment in metropolitan spaces.

"Why do you care?" I asked, though the question did, in part, come from a place of genuine curiosity. With the ceasing of my quill's scratch came an obliterating silence—the sound of neglect, idleness, dawdling. Not working felt integrally wrong.

Margaret shrugged, as if annoyed that I'd asked. "Maybe I'm just tired of watching you die in my head all the time. Constant visions of you slumping over your desk after a straight week of work." She shook her long, curly black hair behind her shoulders. "Don't you have a life or something to occasionally return to?"

I wasn't sure. All of the things that mattered most to me seemed to also fall under the umbrella of "work." Even Dad, for example, tended to have lunch with me at one of the Ministry's in-house restaurants—an overwhelming place with extravagant lace tablecloths and full-motion abstract paintings hanging from the walls. His next invitation didn't come until a full seven days after Remus' incident with the white-haired man.

"Why didn't you do something?" I asked, frustrated. Thirty minutes we'd been sitting there and my fish and chips lay untouched on the plate before me. Dad made a habit of eating slowly, telling me it was important to chew your food with intention. I had other things on my mind.

"It was your home, your night." Not the first time I'd reminded him of this. "Those people were looking to you for a response."

"I _did_ respond," Dad protested. "But you both took off in such a rush, before you could see. I was just as shocked as everyone else, Cora. Do you think I want people like _that_ in _my_ home?" He shook his head fervently. Bouillabaisse dripped off the edges of his airborne silver spoon. "It just took me a moment to react. Obviously we escorted Mr. Webster and his guest from the premises." He waved the spoon to illustrate this departure.

I had to decide whether or not this was true on my own time. Dad had displayed no overt signs of prejudice—I knew he disliked my job, but that could arguably have been an issue of prestige rather than topical focus. From a public standpoint, he'd managed to gracefully dodge the topic of werewolves for the entirety of his time in office. Xavier was nothing if not a purebred politician, not wanting to give the appearance of falling on one side or the other about, really, anything. I did wonder if having such an outspoken daughter had affected any of his working relationships, but ultimately that was not my concern.

Once Remus and I resolved our differences, I told myself, we would begin strategizing a campaign to eliminate existing wolf-prejudiced legislation. But weeks passed, October came, and every day I woke up feeling like I'd lost something, the power to reverse injustice remaining just out of my grasp. Later I would discover Remus had been pulled away on a series of intelligence missions for the Order of the Phoenix, each night sleeping a hundred feet from a Death Eater's door.

But for now I knew nothing. The isolation was complete.

* * *

Attempt #11

1 1/2 c diced aconite

1 tbsp essence of dittany

1/8 c powdered root of asphodel

1 bezoar, stewed separately

2 tbsp molten antimony

1 tsp powdered silver

1 c spirit of myrrh

1/2 cup daisy petals

6 5-cm strips wiggentree bark

2 bunches fluxweed

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Notes: Brewing at full moon may correlate with absence of explosion. Still, keep Cora away from cauldron.


	5. Chapter 5

" _You tell some friends, sure, of course you do. Any good friend is going to notice you're suddenly 'sick' every full moon; it's literal clockwork. But of course they start thinking of you differently after that. Even the best of them. You still love each other, but they can't help it."_

— _Subject 65_

* * *

My mother played the role of Seer all my life. There was a room in our big old house that she never rented out, kept specifically reserved for readings. Even before I was cognizant of my own magical abilities I can remember how that room felt, the strange glitter of possibility that floated in the air. All the things I didn't yet know.

It was the smallest room on the third floor, barely larger than a bathroom, though it did have a single porthole window on the back wall: a quiet suggestion that the room should be used for more than just storage. Mum draped the glass with several crimson silk scarves, squeezed in two printed plush easy chairs and a round oak table in between, Gran's crystal ball resting in its stand on top. That room always smelled of sandalwood and jasmine, two gentle notes of my mother's favorite perfume.

I went years believing she could See. People would leave that oversized closet in tears or beaming widely, but always with a look on their faces that suggested some greater knowledge. Knowing something I didn't. But I remember the summer I turned 13, seeing her lean back against the closed door to her tiny studio and say, "He'll feel better now."

"What do you mean?" I asked. "What's going to happen to him?"

She laughed. "I don't know, Cora! He could be trampled by a herd of centaurs as soon as he leaves this building. The point is I've given him hope otherwise. In longevity, in love. And that's what people need right now, my girl—hope."

I was crushed. I'd always taken comfort in the fact that even if I wasn't sure where life would take me, Mum was. But now I was overcome with a great need to find out for myself what would happen. I wanted to know where I'd live and who I'd love and what significant purpose my life would serve. I wanted to know everything, even beyond my own death. I wanted it all noted down and explained to me, the whole goddamned future. It boggled my mind how comfortable she was with not knowing, my mother, and how effortlessly she concocted stories to help people get by.

"You think knowing will bring you comfort?" she asked me that day with genuine surprise. "You'll live out the rest of your life paralyzed by either fear or anticipation, Cora. You need to leave room for everything else."

But I was not to be dissuaded. That fall I began my studies with Professor Trelawney, who taught the Divination classes at Hogwarts. I was instantly taken with her in spite of myself, her coke-bottle glasses and the long, draped skirts that reminded me of my mother's make-shift curtains in the studio back home. She let me up into her classroom through the trapdoor at all hours of the day or night, regardless of when class was actually scheduled. I had a favorite crystal ball after a time, one with a long, spindly crack in its side that reminded me of the way a river is drawn on a map: winding, finite.

I spent countless hours attempting to scry, staring desperately into a decidedly blank orb, searching for signs of what would come. I wouldn't be afraid anymore if I _knew_ , if I could prepare for what was on the horizon, I silently reasoned with the blank crystal surface below me. It only ever seemed to respond with wafting, empty clouds of white. Sometimes I could half-convince myself that I had seen a certain symbol—a star or a ghost or an animal, maybe—though it's true the mind can play tricks if we want something badly enough.

Of course, it occurs to me now that in all the time I spent crystal-gazing, I was staring into a full moon: a round, marbled white sphere holding every promise of change within.

* * *

"I haven't been avoiding you, exactly," Remus said.

We were standing on the threshold 12 Grimmauld Place, and we were late. London fog swam so thickly around us I couldn't see a single passerby. My skin was damp, and a faulty streetlight blinked restlessly over our heads. Remus and I had happened to arrive for the Order dinner simultaneously, and I knew if I didn't accost him then he'd easily go the whole night without speaking to me. It was his way, avoiding awkward situations rather than facing confrontation outright. I knew him.

" _You_ invited _me_ ," I reminded him. And he had, his epileptic old owl barely making it to my window two days prior before collapsing out of sheer exhaustion, Remus' letter clamped in its beak. "'They'd like to meet you,' you said. You couldn't have elaborated a bit?"

"They heard about… what happened at your dad's." He sighed, shoving his hands deeper into his coat pockets. Remus never wore a hat; the tips of his ears were flushed red from the cold. "They're worried. I guess they just want to get a better idea of this parallel project of ours."

 _Mine_ , the bitter part of me wanted to amend, because the invitation was the first time I'd heard from him since the night of the party. It was clear we weren't going to talk about anything to do with our relationship that night—I could tell from his face and his posture and the way he wasn't looking me in the eyes. And part of me wanted to stand out there in the coming rain with him until we'd worked through the whole thing, figured out what exactly he was so afraid of, finally gotten a sense of what it was he even felt for me—now that I knew concretely that something did exist, or had, or could have. But I could see that in his own way he was trying to make peace, to push forward past the awkwardness for the sake of this cause we shared. So for now I pushed the past from my mind and offered him a hopeful, cheery smile.

I think I scared him a little.

"The Order wants to know about my pet project? You should've told me; I would've brought my collected articles to read aloud over hors d'oeuvres."

I turned toward the home that had only existed before us for the last several minutes, laughing, waiting for Remus to work out my animal pun.

"Cora… did you just…"

I let the door knocker rise and fall twice, hand on my hip, feeling an oddly euphoric sensation of hope.

* * *

"The real insult was losing my goddamned eye," Mad-Eye was saying. "Bastard pulled it right out of my head with no warning! Down in that blasted dungeon of a trunk for close to a year and I could barely see the wall in front of me." He smacked Bill in the middle of his back, prompting a series of hacking coughs from the oldest Weasley. "You couldn't handle that for a day, mate."

"Bill is stronger than you know, Alastor," Fleur cut in adamantly, wrapping her long, elegant fingers around the redhead's arm.

"Dunno, Fleur, I could tell you a story—" Arthur began, but Bill cut him off with a "Dad, whatever it is, please no." Laughter rang out across the table—a familiar kind, as if this was the type of banter that occurred among the group often. From my seat at the end of the long banquet table I could see almost everyone in a single glance—a dozen or so witches and wizards who'd clearly known each other for some time. Even in this gloomy room I could sense the depth of their camaraderie, the shared history that lay here, the ghosts who looked on from the wings. It was indeed a dark cause which had united them, but something deeper than that was keeping them together.

I'd expected to feel like an outsider, but Molly had quickly gone out of her way to make me feel comfortable in the last hour. I'd taken a liking to her instantly, a warm witch with red hair and an inviting smile who kept offering everyone seconds—or, in her husband's case, thirds.

"I swear you're trying to fatten me up for some ulterior motive, Molly," Arthur protested when she insisted on loading his plate with shepherd's pie yet again. "What're you going to do—shove me in the oven?"

She put up her hands in mock defeat, still holding the wooden spoon. "You caught me, Arthur—we're having _you_ for dessert." Again the table erupted; I saw Tonks and Kingsley clink glasses a few seats down. Then Kingsley cleared his throat.

"Should we move on to the subject at hand, then?" he asked.

Immediately everyone fell silent. A wave of guilt swept though me, as if I'd been the one to siphon all of the laughter and easy joy from the room. At the other end of the table, Arthur lowered his knife and fork.

"Some of us are wondering whether it is… prudent, I suppose, for Remus to continue in these more high-profile efforts to promote werewolf equality. What with the Death Eaters running amok, I can't help but wonder if the Order's efforts might be more effectively martialed toward—"

"Keepin' people alive," Mad-Eye muttered.

I was shocked by the sudden change in the room, a thick and heavy tension settling over all of us. Had these people, who'd been joking and laughing not a moment ago, had these thoughts filtering through their minds all along? Molly was refusing to looking at me, brown eyes suddenly downcast.

"All due respect," I said, "I'm not sure I see how the two are mutually exclusive. It isn't the Death Eaters whose minds I'm trying to change, it's the wizarding community at large. How the hell are we going to focus on keeping each other alive If we can't even agree whether a person in our midst is _human_?"

I could hear my voice rising, as it sometimes did with my father when he was missing the point. Remus must have noticed this, too, because his hand moved forcefully to my thigh—to steady or to warn me, I wasn't sure. Suddenly I was beginning to understand why he'd barely spoken two words all night. As much as I believed in the Order's mission, this didn't strike me as a friendly, informational conversation. This had been rehearsed. The question was whether or not Remus had known in advance.

"The thing is, Cora," Arthur began, pushing forward onto his elbows, "is that _we_ need Remus, too. We've got our hands full keeping our eyes on dark wizards, as you can imagine, and Remus is a talented—"

"You don't have to tell me what he is," I snapped, acutely aware of my rudeness and too incensed to care. "But he's a werewolf as well. You can't separate that out of him just because it's more convenient for you. Do you know how many werewolves are comfortable publicly self-identifying their condition in our current political climate?" I dug my fingers into my palm. "There's probably one per continent, Arthur. Remus is Britain's one."

Molly put her hand over mine. "Darling, we all heard what happened the other night. Maybe things could be different if the evening had gone better—"

I looked down at my hand buried beneath hers and fleetingly wished it could be comforting. That it could all be that simple. Instead I could feel the clamminess, my sweat against the table, and I felt betrayed—both by her and myself.

"That was one man!" I looked out across the table, meeting each person's eyes, inwardly shocked by my own adamance and hoping my voice wouldn't waver. "You'd have us give up because of one man? I know we changed minds that night. I _know_ there were people who spoke with Remus and left thinking differently about werewolves, in a way they hadn't before. If Remus continues on this path with me, we could do that on an even bigger scale. If we can open the eyes of people in power—"

"Too late for that." Mad-Eye set his empty mug down on the table with a hollow thunk. "They're all corrupt."

I bristled. "Actually, my father sits on the—"

Mad-Eye snorted. "Missy, the stories about your dad's failed bid for Chief Warlock—"

"Alastor, I don't think that's appropriate," Remus cut in, speaking for the first time since we'd all started talking about him. The table fell collectively silent with the realization. I felt sick, but also incredibly angry, could almost hear my own blood rushing through my veins. Anger wasn't the way to victory, I knew. I could still feel Remus' fingers warm against my skin, tight around the space just above my knee. I closed my eyes and counted down to zero.

"Look, I've enjoyed getting to meet you, and I do believe we're on the same side in all of this," I began. "But I think at the end of the day it's not actually your _or_ my responsibility to decide whether or not Remus will move forward with me." I stood. "The decision is his. And you're doing your friend a great disservice by failing to acknowledge his desires in all of this. Oh, and the pie was very good, Molly. Thank you." I pushed my chair in before I turned and headed for the door.

No one said a word. No one tried to stop me from leaving. I walked down the long hall alone, clutching my wand in my cloak pocket, fighting tears I wasn't sure I understood. I could handle confrontation, if needed, but I was never quite at my best afterwards. I had all of this anger, I thought, reaching for the door, and nowhere to put it.

I tried to turn the tarnished brass knob, but it remained still and resolute in my hand, the metal pulsing with a faintly warm energy. I turned around in confusion to see Remus standing before me, wand held aloft.

"Let me leave, Remus."

He kept his wand where it was. "Let's at least talk before you—"

"I don't want to talk." I could hear the sounds of resumed conversation, the clinking of silverware, even smatterings of laughter emanating from the dining room behind him, as if my sudden absence had given them permission to slip back to exactly where they'd been before, without me. But Remus was gone as well.

"I didn't know… I didn't know there were going to do that," he said. He let out a breath that sounded like he'd been holding it all night. "I thought they were just going to ask some questions. I didn't know they were going to tell you to—"

"Cease and desist, essentially. What are they going to do next, barrage me with Howlers if I attempt to communicate with you?" I was being unfair and I knew it, but it felt good in that moment to be harsh, to bite. I tried the knob again, but he held it steady. I turned to face him fully. If he wanted to talk so badly, then fine, I would talk.

"How could you let them talk about you like that?" I exclaimed. "Just sit there while they decide your future for you, like they're all your parents and you're some naive child? Tell you who you can and can't associate with, I mean—"

"They're my friends," he protested, but his tone was weak. I knew he sensed a grain of truth in my words, the idea that someone can be your friend and also, maybe, not always want what is best for you. "They do mean well," he said, a little lamely.

"Look, I get it. You-Know-Who sucks. His followers suck. I'm not arguing otherwise. But from the sound of that room it seems like your friends would prefer that you throw your own wellbeing to the wayside for the sake of some elusive greater good. And haven't you already done that your whole damn life?"

His expression remained impassive, but his wand hand faltered and we both saw it move. Neither of us spoke for a minute.

"What do _you_ want, Remus?" I asked him finally, exasperated.

He lowered his wand with a sigh, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his free hand.

"I'll talk to them," he said. "I'd like to think… I'd like to think we're going to win this war. And so I'd like to make a difference for people like me… for after."

I felt a measure of release somewhere inside of me, and at the same time the knob spun against my palm, cool against my skin. He was letting me go.

"I believe in this," I told him earnestly. "I believe we can make a change."

He smiled a tired smile. "I know you do, Cora. And on the good days, so do I."


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I've taken some minor liberties with werewolf and wolfsbane history in this chapter.

* * *

" _The feeling that you can never be your full self. That your identity is partially a lie."_

— _Subject 5_

* * *

In the weeks that followed I wasn't sure how to feel. One moment I was angry at Remus' friends for how they had treated him, and the next I was hurt anew by how they'd open up their safe space to an outsider and then collectively turned on her—on _me_ —without even stopping to consider the possibility that someone else's perspective might also be true. More and more it was striking me the degree to which everyone else expected the world to be black and white, to fall into distinct categories. He was Being _and_ Beast, goddammit, people could be many things. Want more than one at once.

Margaret and I began to take out an enormous collection of books from the on-location Ministry library—all the records of werewolf suits and legislation that they had, going back hundreds of years. The recurring thread in all of these instances was the fact that the wolves never had any allies to lobby for them when the new laws were passed. No one to go before the court and simply say, "This is wrong." Where were the people who loved them, I thought, where was the outrage? Had everyone been willfully ignoring the injustices for so long? And why—because it was convenient for them? Illegal firings, eviction, homelessness, murder. The more I learned the more helpless I felt, how insurmountable the opposition seemed, and I began to understand why Remus had chosen for so long to accept it all, why at times this might feel safer.

He waited a week after the disastrous Order dinner to start coming to the office to help with our research. This was useful, as Margaret was mostly only helpful in short spurts before distracting herself with visions of the more exciting activity she'd be doing that evening. (Freshly 18 and living in London, Margaret had an active and healthy nightlife.) As Remus was both an eager student and a talented teacher, the days of his visits quickly became the department's most productive. There was also an unspoken agreement—initiated by Remus, as usual—that we would not again speak of what had happened at the dinner. Our conversation in the hallway that night had been the end of it; he'd left anything that remained behind the door of Grimmauld Place.

He was coming to the office semi-regularly, in any case, so I had to assume that he'd handled things with his colleagues on his end, that some begrudging understanding had formed on their part in regards to these dual forces that existed within him. There also seemed to be an understanding that I would not ask about the missions he was sent on, the Order's work itself. There were days he came into the office adorned in bandages, fresh scars taking shape on his arms, even once a fresh slash across his face that I know he would've healed with magic, were it possible.

There were times I almost asked Margaret where he'd been, what had happened. She never said anything directly, but sometimes when he walked through the door her eyes would widen and she would look to him with a strangely sincere expression, one that seemed almost foreign to her features. I couldn't quite place it. Concern, maybe—or worse, fear. I knew, though, how much he would hate such a breach of privacy if I did learn the truth from her. Margaret couldn't help what she saw, but I could refrain from asking, and I knew if I did in spite of this he'd consider the violation unforgivable. And then we'd be right back to where we started. The very beginning. The stairs.

There were other, subtler things I noticed. He kept a marked distance from me now, often leaning against the wall in the interview room with the door left open, books and papers strewn in a haphazard ring around him, like a student knee-deep in an engrossing research project. I appreciated his enthusiasm—I certainly wasn't getting any of it from Margaret—but in a way it felt as though the work had become a shield, a method of creating distance again between the two of us. Sitting there on the floor half a room away from him, it was hard not to think of his urgency when he'd reached for me that night at the Order's table, that maybe there was more at war within Remus than I'd realized—the part of him that set boundaries for himself and the part that broke them instinctively. For now all I could do was defer to his lead. His help, after all, was invaluable.

"Here," he said, three-fourths of the way through an old scroll of parchment that looked to be decaying as he read it. "There was actually a stretch of time in the early 1900s that all wolf-specific laws were repealed. They were even setting up these… clinics, I guess you could call them, to make wolfsbane more accessible. They weren't sustainable, of course, because it's just too expensive to distribute in that kind of volume. And then a new minister came into power not long after and essentially reversed every single repeal." He shook his head at the document. "A reversion to acting out of fear."

I reached for the parchment, and he gave it to me. "Still, that's a precedent," I said.

"You're right, it is something. I'm surprised I didn't already know about this."

I chuckled wryly. "I can't imagine they go out of their way to talk about it in History of Magic class."

"Fair."

Margaret had stepped out on another one of her typical two-hour lunch breaks, so it was just Remus and I in the room. The office was unusually cold and Remus was looking particularly worn out today. He'd been later than usual getting here, his hair all mussed and his arm in a sling without a single explanation as to why. We'd been going through old courtroom transcripts for hours, him with one hand, and I wanted all of this to amount to something. I wanted desperately to move forward.

I bit my lip. "Remus, I've been thinking… we should take what we've found to my dad. He's in the position to really do something, he could talk to other people on the Wizengamot—"

"Cora, I fancy the idea of change as much as the next person like me, but do you really need me present for a conversation like that?" He looked suddenly uncomfortable, and I knew he was thinking of the party.

"Hold on, _you_ came to _me_ ," I reminded him, "and you didn't say anything about staying behind the scenes. My dad's less likely to shrug it all off if the person he'd be denying is sitting right there in front of him. Trust me."

I knew, on some level, that Remus putting himself under a spotlight in this way went against his very nature, his desire to live a life in private, unbothered, a trouble to no one. I knew the night at my father's had been a humiliation for him, a source of guilt—his fiery instinct in the moment he gripped the white-haired man's throat going against that competing desire to be help, to inform, to be good. And I knew agreeing to my request meant putting himself in that place again, the possibility of discovering more about himself that he'd ever wanted to. That maybe there was both good and bad within him.

* * *

"Let's put it this way," Will said. "I'm out of Red Bull."

We were moving like ghosts through Diagon Alley—many shops had closed their doors over the course of the summer, after news of Voldemort's return broke conclusively into mainstream media and the Death Eaters began a public rampage. Only a handful of shops were still open, and Will's go-to potion ingredient supply had not made the cut. I was currently leading him to Slug and Jiggers, the spot I'd frequented as a Hogwarts student: decent quality of ingredients, as I remembered, and for the time being still open.

By now it was late October. Everyone who passed Will and I seemed to be in a rush to get to where they were going, moving just a little faster than usual. Maybe it was the cold, or maybe it was something else in the air—that inescapable scent of fear, acrid like smoke. As I'd begun to spend more time with Will I noticed he seemed unfazed by any of this—both the cold and the impending doom that seemed to hang over the rest of us. It was as if the recurring Azkaban breakouts had somehow flown under his radar. Even now, he walked slowly and without outer robes of any kind despite the cool temperatures. As if to make some kind of point.

"But it's going fine otherwise," he continued. "Fewer explosions. And it's only been a few months." I thought, fleetingly, that it sounded a bit like he was trying to convince himself as much as me. But then, louder, "Are we going to change the world, Cora?"

"Well, obviously we wouldn't embark on a quest to cure an incurable disease for the pure day-to-day joy of it," I quipped.

He rolled his eyes. "I believe you're referring to _my_ quest, as all you do is sit around and chop things."

"Hey, I'm saving us valuable time—you'd have to strip all that bark yourself it weren't for me!" We paused to let a passing miniature red-and-gold rocket cut in front of us—clearly a Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes product, leaving a glittery trail hanging in its wake as it zoomed by. Will cracked a smile, but it faded as we reached the opaque door of the supply shop. The display window featured an admittedly unappealing pile of Graphorn horns atop a wooden table with a missing leg. A morose young witch gazed out at us from behind the register, clearly wondering if we were going to venture inside.

Will cast a dubious gaze back at her. "Merlin, I've never even been inside this place. There's really nowhere else…?"

I smirked. "Elitist."

He turned back to me and wrinkled his nose. "Fine, but if they pre-shred their starthistle I'm leaving."

* * *

 _Hi Professor, hope you're well. Just wondering—do you undergo any transformations during the full moon? It's just a little poll I'm taking. Thanks! —C_

I thought about Remus for the entirety of that final Christmas break. I wrote many letters like this, each more ridiculous than the next, and I never sent an owl out with any of them. It felt like something I'd dreamed or imagined, a tale I'd spun for attention. My professor, a _werewolf._

It was a snowy winter in London, and Dad was rarely home, often off cavorting at colleagues' parties to which I was never invited. So it was me, alone in the big house, seeing those eyes everywhere I went. Those familiar eyes in a body so foreign to me, twin pinpricks of comfort awash in a shape of chaos. I'd read about the werewolves, had heard just as many horror stories as the next person. But as much as I tried—no matter how long I stared out the window into those rising snowdrifts—I couldn't link the two in my mind. This frightening myth and the man I'd come to know that year simply refused to coalesce.

It made no sense. On some level I even _wanted_ to be afraid—my anxieties would have made evolutionary sense here, for once, anyone would have understood it. But every time the wolf entered my mind, so did Remus with his like eyes. The two were inextricable.

This is all to say that maybe people exist in our lives for only a moment, to help you soak up the pain or abandon the grief or redirect the fear, and perhaps these people are only meant to exist in that space of time before disappearing forever. Perhaps a return would mean catastrophe or regression; perhaps they are so indistinguishable from the emotion of the era that to bring them back would mean confronting all these feelings again, as you are now—a standoff that determines whether you have truly grown, or have only been deluding yourself.

I think this is how Remus thought of our time together: a season, a moment, always temporary. I think that when you go into a relationship—any relationship—knowing it will end you become a more uninhibited version of yourself, who is still you but less afraid, less wary, more attuned to the nuance of desire. And so maybe we were always pushing at the edges of something not meant to last, pretending it was different.

After Christmas he kept his distance for a time. I imagine there weren't many people he'd told about his condition in his life, and I doubted that any of them had discovered the truth as I did: the physical embodiment of his other form so stark and apparent before me in his office on that fateful night. So again I offered all I could give at the time: sheer normality, behaving exactly the same as I always had, _hello Professor_ and _goodbye Professor_ and waiting for him to come back to me, like some reticent woodland creature determining whether it can trust. There was a deepening that would occur if we picked up where we'd left off with the addition of this new information—I knew, and he did as well.

So it wasn't until February of my last term at Hogwarts that he invited me again to his office, the night before the full moon, as if to make some kind of point. I came and we sat in two adjacent desks in his empty classroom and did not speak for some time, gazing out together through the unshuttered windows to the moon, as open and milky white as a blind eye.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed this week!

* * *

" _Every month before I change, I picture the cure. I imagine how it'll taste, the way it'll feel going down my throat. I know it's coming, in the way some people think about messiahs. I just know it. And I know a part of me will die the moment I drink it, but I'm ready for that day."_

— _Subject 62_

* * *

Dad insisted on meeting me early, before Remus' arrival, which had me thoroughly unsettled before I'd even departed for the restaurant. He had a table perpetually reserved for himself at Fiona Fortescue's, owned by Florean's enterprising daughter and easily the most expensive place to eat in Diagon Alley. In order to continue servicing its wealthy clientele, a small swath of shops and restaurants on the side furthest from Knockturn Alley had contracted a team of Aurors to surround their property with a series of enchantments and protective charms. This way the richest witches and wizards in Britain could eat out in the city free from the embarrassment of fear. Fear was for the impoverished, after all, and so my father had a table at Fiona's.

It was a dimly lit place. "Ambiance," I suppose, though some might just call it dark. As I slid into the booth across from Dad I could barely even see his face. Shadows laced their way up and down his cheeks, deepening the lines around his mouth and darkening his smile. I took off my coat and sat, nervous, waiting. He hadn't gotten up to greet me, and the cast of the shadows on his face made it hard to place his mood.

"Hi, Dad."

"Glad you could make it, sweetheart." His robes, as usual, hung pristine and perfect on his shoulders. The flame of the candle between us flushed a soft lavender color, bathing the silver W pinned to his chest in its flickering light.

"Remus will be here soon. What was it that was so important—"

"Cora, I need to ask about your endgame." He leaned forward. "What are your intentions in all of this? Your goals?"

Maybe another daughter would've been excited by this question, and admittedly a part of me was—my father, finally taking an interest in my work. But another part of me was suspicious of his curiosity, the timing of it, the expression on his face that displayed something distinctly more urgent than mere excitement. Knitted brows, lips pursed.

"I thought you were happy for me. Working at the Ministry and all." I pointedly sidestepped his question. "I've kept you abreast of my progress. I told you when I was approached about publishing my interviews. I know you read the Quibbler article I sent you. You _know_ what I'm doing, Dad, every step of the way, and I reckon you're even checking up on me in your own time. So why are you—"

"I'd like to hear it from you." The candle on the table glowed brightly blue, casting his angular features in a deeper cobalt light. "Tell me what about this is so important to you."

I doubted myself, my sudden defensiveness.

"I want to find a cure. But until that day comes I want the wolves to be able to live as equals. And they aren't now, Dad. You know they aren't."

He rotated something in his hands—a pocket watch, maybe. It flashed gold between his fingers. He seemed to be weighing something in his mind. Considering what to say next.

"You just seem… consumed by it," he said carefully. "This goal, it doesn't just seem like _work_ for you, it—"

"Activism rarely is," I interrupted. "For anyone."

He continued on as if I hadn't spoken. "It seems more like desire, Cora. And so I'm just wondering if any of this has to do with… with Remus."

The candle burned a fitful red between us.

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"I know he was your teacher at school—"

"Are you implying—"

"Fine, Cora, Merlin, I'll just _say_ it then, if you'll let me talk. I'm worried you're stalling a promising career for the sake of a silly schoolgirl crush. Though it's not even silly at all, frankly. It's just dangerous."

"He isn't dangerous—"

"Is he currently taking wolfsbane?"

"You _know_ he can't afford it; that's one of the reasons we're meeting with you tonight."

"So you don't deny you have feelings for him?"

I looked at my hands. Still red, the flame lit my folded fingers from the outside, unable to reach the shadows that pressed against my palms.

"Whether I do or not is irrelevant," I said. "Nothing's going to happen between us—"

"Your desires aren't irrelevant, Cora. I'd expect you to know better. Desire determines your actions, the way you spend your time, where you devote your energy. I'm not trying to be blunt, or hurtful—"

"I'm not sure you're trying hard enough."

" _Cora_." He split my name into two, drawn-out syllables, clearly frustrated, and then sighed deeply. The candle went a soft white, wax dripping down its length. "I think I went about this in the wrong way. I'm sorry. I—I don't know how to be…" It wasn't a pocket watch, I noticed, but a locket. He flicked it open and closed as he trailed off, seeming unsure of how to proceed. "I'm just worried about you. I am! That's all this is. Sure, maybe I don't know you as well as your mother, but I can tell when someone is consumed by something. I have a past, too—I've loved and I've wanted and more often than not it's pushed me to the brink of destruction."

"This isn't destructive, Dad. I don't see how seeking positive change could ever be destructive."

"If your motivation is truly that simple, then I believe you. But is it? Or is there a part of you that's motivated through all of this work by the sheer momentum of your feelings for this man? Because that could take a bad turn, if you aren't careful. People are fickle, Cora, and arbitrary."

"But Remus isn't like that." I backtracked. "And anyway, you're just misunderstanding my situation. That's all. You mixed up my motives. This isn't a conversation that needs to be had. I'm _fine_."

"Okay, okay." He put his hands up. The flame remained white. "You're right. And if that really is the case, then I'm sorry for overstepping. I know it's cliche to say aloud, but I really do just want the best for you." He grinned and patted my clenched hand. "Sentimental old me. I look at you and see the youngest Minister of Magic in history."

"Th-thanks, Dad," I stuttered out. He'd ended kindly, but my mind was still swirling with his questions and insinuations. For all his political play-nice and bravado, my father could actually be quite observant and cutting when he deemed such behavior appropriate. A good quality in a lawyer to be sure, but often disarming in a parent. I found quite suddenly that I couldn't breathe.

"Remus will be here soon," I said. "I'm just going to the bathroom."

He nodded at me then, with a concern bordering on pity. I think as he slipped deeper into the role of father he was becoming better versed in the manifestations of my panic and fear. He knew, on some level, why I was leaving.

I walked past several other empty tables covered in white cloths until I reached the back of the restaurant. A server dressed in all black gave me a confused half-glance as I moved quickly past him and promptly locked myself into the bathroom, thoughts awhirl.

Strong people weren't supposed to question their motives. Or that was what I believed, anyway. This could then only be categorized as a moment of weakness, or maybe I wasn't strong enough for this to be just a moment; maybe this meant I _was_ weak. I couldn't tell anymore, I couldn't think, wouldn't a stronger person still be out there with my father, wouldn't a stronger person tell him in an eloquent and conclusive manner the reasons he was wrong? I stared hard at myself in the mirror, trying to regain control of my breathing. My heart felt like it had expanded inside my chest, was continuing to grow, pumping too much blood so fast into every finger and toe, rushing through my legs and arms at an unmanageable speed, until I could no longer keep everything inside of me. My hands were shaking. I stared at them and saw the tiny tremors moving my fingers unbidden, even as I tried desperately to hold them taut. And finally a thought crossed my mind and stayed there, the one that the flurry of others had been trying to hold at bay: what if everything I was doing, all the research and the interviewing and the upcoming protest—what if it _was_ all just for Remus? What if I wasn't really concerned with the fate of werewolves at large, housing them and employing them and freeing them from their ties to the moon? Could it be that I had just co-opted his battle as my own because of how I felt for him? Did that somehow lessen the significance of the work I was doing? Had I internalized it all as some naive romantic quest? Was that even what I _wanted_?

Goddammit. What _did_ I want? And what the hell would I do, then, once the cure was found? When it was all over? What would be left of me?

I could imagine Remus arriving just in time, in his same threadbare suit, with all of his case notes in tow—neatly written and alphabetically itemized, as was Remus' way. I wanted to believe my motives were pure, but there was a part of me in that moment that gravitated towards him instinctually, filled with a guttural longing that embarrassed me. And suddenly I wasn't panicking anymore; I was angry. I couldn't bear to be around someone who questioned me, nor could I be around the person who created the questions in the first place. I didn't need this. Not tonight.

I unlocked the bathroom door and slipped out the restaurant's back entrance.

* * *

Margaret just shook her head at me when I came through into work the next day. She was wearing sheer tights under a short leather skirt and her legs were propped up on the desk—her usual workplace posture. A black silk ribbon was tied in a bow around her throat.

"You messed up," she said, amused.

I stopped, startled, and looked at her in surprise. "What do you—"

"You'll see," she said. "But I think you already know."

Before I'd even had time to process this statement Remus had already burst through the door behind me, disheveled and furious. He dropped his briefcase on the ground by his feet, breathing heavily.

"You left," he said, in that cool and understated way in which he often communicated his anger.

"I—"

"Why would you ask me to lay out all of my problems and vulnerabilities for your father, to give myself up for dissection and analysis and potential ridicule, so that you could just _leave_?"

I was vaguely aware of Margaret watching us, spinning her wand in circles between her thumb and index finger, amusement quirking at the corners of her lips. She'd seen this once in her head, presumably, yet somehow watching it play out again in real time was just as entertaining.

"Let's go somewhere else," I muttered, brushing past him. I could feel the frustration emanating from him, see it in flashes as we walked toward the lift: fingers clenched into fists at his sides, the way he kept his face turned away, how I could hear his breathing in the silence in a way that reminded me of how my own could be in moments of fear, except his was marked with anger, forced out of him with violence. Like a bull about to charge.

"I don't think it's something we need to have an entire conversation about," he whispered as we boarded the lift with a nervous-looking wizard in a pointed hat. "Just tell me _why_. Tell me why you left. Then I'll know, and I won't let it happen again. It's that simple."

I pressed the button for the top floor, which glowed cheerfully in response and chirped, "Going up!" There wasn't any good reason to take him to the top floor, really, but I'd thought of that always-blue sky beaming down from the window in the ceiling and how it always soothed me, its calm and coastal hue. How beautiful it was in my mind's eye.

"Aren't you going to explain this to me, Cora?" Remus was hissing, uncharacteristically impatient.

I noticed at this point that the other wizard—a diminutive man, maybe a foot shorter than me—was subtly pressing against the other wall of the car. Feeling as outside of myself as I did, it was strange to observe his expression and body language in that moment. He was afraid. Of Remus.

I put my hand on Remus' forearm, trying to wordlessly implore him to calm down. He was startled by this, pulling away from me, but seemed to get the message nonetheless. He moved into the corner of the car, looking at no one.

"I'm allowed to be angry," he muttered aloud, like a mantra. "I'm allowed to be upset." I think this verbalization might've unsettled me as much as the lift's other occupant, though perhaps for different reasons. It wasn't like Remus to externalize his feelings so directly.

The other wizard got off at the next floor in a rush, stumbling over the hem of his robe on his way out. No one else entered. The doors closed. Remus did not move, did not say another word. We both just stood at opposite ends of the car, me tapping my foot nervously and him leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. We likely passed a full minute in these postures, watching the glowing numbers above the door tick higher and higher. For me the waiting was a chance to figure out what the hell I was going to say in the first place, but as we stepped out onto Will's floor I realized I had no rational explanation for last night's behavior. He was right, I should've been there with him. I should've stayed. For once it was that simple.

In all the times I'd been to the top floor I'd never seen another person in that golden hall, and this was no exception. It was the only place in all of the Ministry that I knew there to be true privacy and quiet, and right now this seemed like what we needed.

I just started walking, heels tapping a rhythmless pattern into the shiny tile floor. I heard Remus follow after me, the doors sliding smoothly to a close behind him. He got out in front of me, extending his hands.

"What are you doing?"

I remembered to exhale. One deep rush, emptying my lungs. I couldn't think.

"What the hell is going on with you?" he said again, exasperated. He stepped away from me, throwing up his hands in frustration. Again, another gesture that was very unlike him. Perhaps we were other people on the top floor of the Ministry of Magic. Perhaps here we switched our roles.

"You left me to deal with your dad last night. _Alone_ ," he continued. "You know what that took for me. Especially after the party. But it wasn't like you. And now isn't like you either."

I knew that. There was a part of me that could still summon up the rage that had coursed through me last night, to cover the doubt, though this didn't seem the time or place for it. Often anger could be comforting, more definitive than sitting alone with the fear. Or, god forbid, exploring any of the questions that still lingered within me. I didn't want to tell Remus the truth. I wanted desperately to be strong, instead. The hallway stretched for so long I couldn't see the end of it.

"Something's wrong," he said, with an air of realization. He was suddenly motionless, looking at me like a doctor would a patient, peering at me from a distance as if the answer would show itself the moment I widened my eyes. I'd just been spun off-kilter for a moment, I wanted to say. Like a top. I just needed to find balance again. I was trying to find balance.

The hall echoed. The sky was blue.

"He's not a bad bloke, your dad," Remus offered reluctantly, apparently satisfied that for the time being that the answers would not become spontaneously apparent in my expression. "Once we got down to it he was pretty reasonable about everything I showed him. He said they'd skipped over that brief period of acceptance—or tolerance, I guess—in his law classes as well. Intentional omission, from the sound of it." He cleared his throat.

"So he wants to hold a committee meeting. Wants me there, and you too, of course, if you're up for it. Which means a lot of policy research, more of what we've been doing. We're working against centuries of prejudice, but we have a real chance, I think, and I don't want to mess it up."

He kept trying to make eye contact with me, as if the meeting of our eyes would offer some kind of guarantee. "But I need to know I can count on you for this. It's important. Are you sure you're all right?"

My wild, spinning thoughts finally began to slow. I understood that I needed to reassure him. Now was not the time to share my fear that I might only be doing any of this because I loved him.

"Fine. I'm fine." My eyes flickered up to his; I tried to smile. "Yes, I understand this is important. And yes, I'll be at the meeting. Does he have a date in mind?"

"He wants to set it up before the holidays, so sometime in the next month. I might have to move something around with the Order—"

"No, don't. I'll talk to him. We'll move it up. I'm sure it's fine." I looked back down at the tile, where I could see the vague shape of his face reflected in warmer hues. I knew he was looking at me. I could see make out his eyes in the floor but the rest of his features were blurred.

"Goddammit, Cora." He moved toward me haltingly. "I never know how to fix anything," he muttered, pushing his hands into coat pockets.

"I'm fine," I said again, attempting to clear my throat. "Just a strange twenty-four hours, I guess. I'm not myself."

He reached out hesitantly, ended up just grazing my bare forearm with his fingertips. It was strange seeing Remus helpless. Strange that abstract things swirling inside of me could have that effect on anyone else at all.

"It's a great opportunity," he said meaningfully, switching tacks. "You were right. Your dad's a valuable connection. And making the right impression at this meeting could change everything." His fingers trailed up my arm to clasp my elbow—I think he meant it to be comforting. I couldn't look at him. I wanted so deeply for things to be different. Clearer.

"Cora?" came a shout from the end of the long hallway. I peered around Remus, knowing even as I did so that our roles had been reversed, he so earnest and direct, and I acting out the avoidance that was so characteristic to him.

"Will?"

Remus let go of me as if I'd burned him, fiddling with his robes and clearing his throat like a caricature of a man caught doing something wrong. Will ambled down the hall to us, grinning cheerily. As he approached I noticed a large sack of cans slung over his shoulder, like some aluminum-delivering Santa Claus.

"Just my weekly recycling trip," he said, shaking the bag of empty Red Bulls. Remus blinked.

"Will, sorry, this is Remus," I said quickly, waving an arm between them.

"Ah, yes." Will extended his free hand. "You're the, ah—"

"The werewolf, yes," Remus said formally. It was like a switch had been flipped, I noticed—suddenly he was acting the way he acted around my father, my father's friends. Like an invisible curtain had slipped down between the two of them, obscuring his true self.

"I'm, ah—" Will jiggled the bag around. "In the process of fixing you."

I winced. "He's the grant addition I told you about, Remus. He's been experimenting with cure potions the last few months. Lots of aconite."

"Of course." Remus' eyes remained impassive, part of his usual public facade. "Your efforts are appreciated, obviously. Good to meet you. Just let me know when you've got something for me to drink."

Will laughed, though there was an odd hitch to it. "Of course, of course I will! Good to meet you, Mr., ah—Remus."

He gave us a wide berth as he passed us, heading in the direction of the lift, the bag thudding metallically against his back with each step.


	8. Chapter 8

" _No. You don't think about the past. You can't afford to."_

— _Subject 48_

* * *

At Hogwarts Mum would send me anti-care packages. Tidily wrapped parcels of things that caused more harm than good: trick wands, too much chocolate, the occasional pack of Muggle cigarettes. Remus found these boxes to be a source of endless amusement.

"Does she love you or want to kill you?" he asked, maybe a little bit seriously, as I unwrapped the cigarettes in the soft light of his office. How could I explain to him that her love for me was maybe just a little more complicated than most? Harder to quantify, quick to transform. My mother's love like water, always changing, freezing solid, evaporating down to almost nothing, and then waves upon waves, a rain of love so strong I'd worry one day it would drown me. How much I longed for it to stay the same. Maybe I began to look for that guarantee in other places.

There was a bridge we went to sometimes in the middle of the night, on the edge of the school grounds. I remember the first time we went after I found out about him. Studying the Muggle cigarette pack in the moon's dim light. Full just a few days away.

"I've heard they kill you," he said dubiously, watching me. "Not at once, but slowly. Which seems like the worst way to die." We were sitting at the very end of the bridge, each leaning against one of the support beams. I turned to look at him when he spoke, saw the dappled starlight spilling across his hair and body. It was after midnight, and I'd run out of believable excuses for us to be together. I'm not sure what we would've said to anyone who found us. Here were were, though, two joint insomniacs outside on an unusually warm February night. I swear I could see the snow melting around us, carving little rivers into the white as it began to disappear.

"I've decided I'm trying everything once," I said, though I hadn't really decided that until this moment. That didn't mean it wasn't true, I reasoned. He could tell, I think, laughing incredulously as I whispered _incendio_. A small golden flame tipped my wand, which I moved to his cigarette and then my own. He shook his head as I held it out in front of me like incense, the acrid scent making me wonder why anyone would ever choose to inhale.

"Why would I willingly begin an addiction to a cancerous Muggle product that I have at best spotty access to when I've already made a habit of scraping death's edges on a monthly basis?" he asked.

I'd almost brought the cigarette to my mouth when he said this. I stopped abruptly. It was unlike Remus to bring up his condition so directly. Something like surprise shot through me, followed by trepidation. Suddenly I was unsure of what to say next.

"Mum said they help with stress relief?" I offered weakly. "She said she lost a lot of weight—"

Remus gestured wordlessly at himself. I could see the bones of his fingers shift beneath his translucent skin as he moved them, a ghostly collarbone peeking out from beneath his threadbare button-up. A cold wind blew through the bridge at that moment. With a flick of his wand he cast a spell; I felt instantaneously warm, as if encased in some element-shielding bubble. Somehow it felt like a door had blown wide open. I felt braver.

"What does it feel like?" I asked softly.

He pulled his robes closer around himself and didn't look at me, his eyes distant and downcast. I worried that I had overstepped but he tilted his head and opened his mouth and I realized he'd just been thinking of what to say next.

"What I truly believe," he began, "is that dying would be less painful. Because that happens once, and then it's over. My body doesn't forget the pain, like women do after giving birth. Nor is there any accrual of tolerance. I'm not getting stronger. My body rips itself apart and reforms into something entirely other every month, and I'm a slave to it. A slave to the moon, to the calendar, to the bite. To the beast who made me what I am."

"But he—the werewolf—he didn't do it on purpose—"

"He did," Remus sighed. "Biting me was an act of revenge against my father; I was just caught in the crossfire. Now I can't even remember my life before it anymore." He paused. "It happened when I was five."

I gasped sharply. "I didn't kn—"

He waved his hand. He had his knees pulled up into his chest; he suddenly looked so small and young to me, despite the scars and what the lycanthropy had done to his body over years of transformation. And yet the remaining drifts of colorless snow behind him turned him vibrant, a kind of beacon.

"I don't know why I've told you this," he said abruptly, in that way he had of distancing himself after sharing something true. "Very few people know." He looked to the cigarette still clasped absently between his thumb and index finger, the filter smoking gently. "Maybe the cigarettes wouldn't be so bad," he said, and began to bring one to his lips.

I knocked it out of his hand. He looked at me in surprise, green eyes wide as I'd ever seen them, as smoke rose between us. I threw down my own, still unsmoked. He vanished the two of them silently and just looked at me for a moment, the hint of a smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

It was the last time I ever touched a cigarette.

* * *

Margaret sneezed faintly in the other room, the accumulated dust all from all our books and old transcripts filtering thickly through the air. We'd spread everything across the floor in the interview room—I didn't usually join him in there, but Margaret kept giving me this very specific look, a knowing one, and after days in that room with her it was beginning to make me uncomfortable.

Remus and I were formulating a plan. For the time being, it seemed, my father was on our side. What we knew was that the members of the Wizengamot could form a committee to review laws and ultimately choose to repeal the law in question if it was found to be inappropriate or unjust. (There was the question of why such laws would even be passed in the first place, but we weren't even going to get into that.)

Remus and I were compiling proof that the laws limiting wolf employment and housing and further classifying them as Beasts were ultimately prejudicial and not benefiting the community at all, but instead creating distance, causing isolation on the part of the wolves, and pushing many of the afflicted towards Voldemort at this point in history—as if he needed any more followers. The answer was to dissolve these boundaries, give the wolves equal opportunities, increase funding and resources in search of the cure, and change them decidedly and invariably back to the category of Being.

These constraints took shape over the course of a week as Remus and I researched and discussed what changes would be plausible. There was the ideal, of course, and then what could actually happen. At times the requests we proposed felt outlandish and inappropriate, at which point one of us would remind the other that they were, in fact, very basic rights that, had each of these individuals not received the bite, would be guaranteed.

My father had scheduled an informal meeting next week. If that went well, we'd request a formal hearing. We'd present our concerns and requests before the entire assembled Wizengamot at that time, and if enough voted for the legislation to be lifted, that'd be that. Maybe it wouldn't change the public perspective in a day, but at least their feelings of prejudice would no longer be backed by the lawmakers of the wizarding community.

* * *

Perhaps the stairs were a strange fixation. It's true I've called the memory of Black's break-in and Remus' consequent assurances to mind a thousand times since that night. But over the course of my seventh year I attached symbolism to a litany of otherwise inconsequential objects: the stairs, the bridge, the goddamned moon. I found it was a way of coping, hiding comfort for myself everywhere I went for later moments of need. So I took comfort in these connections. I turned the inanimate into symbol without fail. This was a way of saving exhales for later moments, when I found I'd spent too long holding my breath. At the end of the day, of course, I was just trying to find a way to deal with my fear.

For example, the stairs. After Black's night the stairs took a little bit of that memory from me: the utter quiet of the night, the solid stone beneath my feet and fingers comforting in a way I'd never noticed before, the trust I had that the surface beneath me would hold, and that if something was coming for me Remus would see it long before its arrival. The confidence that nothing in that moment could surprise me. That I was in control.

And so wherever I was going on those stairs—walking to class or to the Great Hall or my dorm—I'd get an echo of the way that night had felt. Not just in the sense of senses, either, but the emotions of that moment, that radiation of confidence and trust. I created meaning in empty objects; I looked at the moon and thought of his resilience, the guarantees of his anatomy, how it could change completely and yet return, and return, and return. The bridge became a reminder of my own power—when I doubted myself I could stand at the very edge of it where wood met ground and remember how I'd saved him, how there had been a moment where I knew what to do and did it, without hesitation, without wonder. Without fear.

Perhaps this was wisdom, remaking my surroundings into reserves of strength, tying memory irrevocably to place. Perhaps this was stupidity, a crutch or coping mechanism for a personality becoming increasingly incapable of dealing with the world in its rawest form. I'll never know for sure; I'm not the person to make that determination. After all, I'm talking about myself.

One thing I can say conclusively, though, is that something was building. A deep desire that may or may not have been mutual. For years my feelings had become so twisted inside of me that it was becoming increasingly difficult to separate what I loved from what I feared. Somehow I know that all of this is tied to the fact that I didn't abandon Remus when I discovered his werewolf form, though many would have, those far stronger than me. That my fear of the wolf was not enough to force my departure. But over time the fear dissipated and was replaced—I understand now—with love. Because the months passed and I kept walking up those stairs, kept gazing out of windows at night, spent that time with him and never wished it otherwise.

* * *

Attempt #11

3 c diced aconite

1 1/2 tbsp essence of dittany

1/8 c powdered root of asphodel

1 tsp essence of comfrey

1 c spirit of myrrh

3/4 cup shredded valerian sprigs

1 5-cm strip wiggentree bark

1 bunch fluxweed

2 tbsp mint

Notes: Wrong again.


	9. Chapter 9

" _I told her to leave. I told her to leave me. I don't know why she was there that night. I'd told her to go. You have to understand, I didn't turn her… I didn't just kill her either. I destroyed her. I picked her bones clean."_

— _Subject 34_

* * *

In the dream he approaches me. Not in human form—not exactly—but as half a wolf. The fingers wrapped around his wineglass are tipped with long, jagged claws, cracking and yellowed. His ears are not human but set further back on his head, an animalistic point to them, closely attuned to whatever it is I'm saying. And when he smiles: a sharp set of teeth in a bright white hue. It hurts my eyes to look. A squint into the sun.

"What are you celebrating?" I always ask as he approaches. We're at a party, though I never know whose. It could be his, I suppose. After all, his glass is always full, sloshing with some ruby-colored liquid. In the dream he is a messy and indulgent drinker. Sometimes I am embarrassingly drawn to this. He licks his lips when he meets my gaze, because he knows I'm watching him. Slow, with purpose.

"Just relishing my last night," he says, and takes a long sip from his goblet, like we're following a script. "I'm going to make it count."

We're standing on the edge of the room, watching carousers spin and twirl in a way that defies gravity. Some nights I believe that they will never stop dancing. That the song will never end.

"Last night of what?" I ask.

"Before they all find out."

I've had this dream a hundred times. Sometimes I look back and mark this moment as a beginning. Other times, the end. But either way I can never resist the question.

"Find out what?"

He turns to me and smiles, every sharp white tooth shining bright, and I get the feeling that I should already know.

* * *

"Are you nervous?"

Remus laughed. "Just a bunch of men in funny robes, Cora. What's there to be nervous about?"

We were sitting on a long wooden bench in the Ministry building, one of the floors near the top. I traced a long crack in the grainy oak with my finger, which seemed to me a suggestion that nothing is ever quite as sturdy as it appears. I felt unsteady. We were waiting outside a conference room for our committee meeting. I'd strategically planned the date so that I could dash off to my mother's for the holidays the moment it was over, should escape and recovery prove necessary. Remus, however, was surprisingly optimistic.

"We have precedent, we've done our research," he was saying. "What else could they want, really? I feel as though we've spelled it all out for them. They'd be fools not to repeal the laws at this point."

I shrugged absently, only half-paying attention, my fingers still tracing that spindly break in the bench between us. I understood the necessity of using my relationship to my father to orchestrate the meeting, as no one would have listened to us otherwise, but the whole situation felt uncomfortable to me. That Dad and I would likely act as strangers in that room, Dad in an effort to impress upon his colleagues that he could maintain impartiality even in the face of blood relation. And it always felt wrong calling in favors like that—as if I should have worked harder, as if I should've encountered more difficulty in my efforts. It never felt fair. Of course, there was no guarantee that this meeting would result in legislation repeal at all, but you wouldn't have known it talking to Remus on that bench that day.

"You're looking pale," he said suddenly, interrupting himself. "All the blood's gone out of your face. Your lips are white."

I felt further and further away from myself, as if I'd popped out of my body and was watching the whole scene unfurl from some aerial vantage point. I was good with words, at a desk, with a quill in my hand. Defending our position to a room full of men was out of my comfort zone.

"I'm nervous," I admitted aloud, to myself as much as my companion. "I'm just… not sure. I don't know how Dad's going to act in there." I hadn't seen him since my abrupt departure from our dinner weeks prior.

Remus put a hand suddenly over my own, the one that had been restlessly tracing invisible patterns into the woodgrain. I let my fingers still under his.

"He was a perfect gentleman at Fiona's, with me," he said in that conclusive manner I recognized from school. The way he could state something convincingly enough to make a whole room believe it.

The door opened.

"Case 37001," a squat red-haired witch called in a monotone. He removed his hand from mine and we stood together, ready as we'd ever be.

Dad smiled at me when we walked in. The room was paneled in oak and very brightly lit—no windows, but a series of lamps adorning the walls every couple feet. It was an intimidating room, and yet it glowed. I tried not to gauge the smile Dad had offered, taking my seat next to Remus at the head of the long conference table. A row of gruff-looking men in purple robes trained their eyes on me, and I was reminded of the Order dinner months prior. Remus appeared unfazed.

"Are you the werewolf?" one of the men asked directly.

I'd read through enough court and hearing transcripts over the last few weeks to know that the question was inappropriate, that there was a script to be followed which this man was flouting and no one was calling him on it. At the same time, Remus had no reason to hide. That was the point of all this.

He nodded once, curtly, making unflinching eye contact with the man who'd asked. The questioner continued to stare at him unabashedly, skepticism contorting his mouth into a foul expression he likely didn't even realize he was making. I wanted to reach for Remus as he had for me that night at Grimmauld Place, communicating comfort or warning through physical touch. But I couldn't move.

"What, would you like to see my teeth?" Remus grinned widely, incisors flashing in the brightness of that airless room. Everyone laughed a little too hard, in obvious effort to ease the tension in the wake of their member's misstep. Remus cast a glance my way, shuffling papers academically, and grinned again. Maybe we could have fun with this, that smile seemed to say, maybe it doesn't all have to be so serious.

The men didn't acknowledge me at all before we started, even with my father's presence—or perhaps because of it, I would wonder after. Beyond the smile when I first entered, Dad was now all business, no other personal acknowledgement. Which was fine by me. They ran through a few pieces of housekeeping and then, because it was an informal meeting, we were allowed to launch right into our presentation of precedent.

As Remus spoke I observed the expressions of those at the table carefully, taking mental notes: whose face was open; who remained dubious; who seemed as if they'd need more convincing, but maybe there was a chance. We were not naive enough to think that all the work could be done today, in the span of an hour. Prejudice was more complicated than that. How else, after all, could these laws be explained in the first place?

"The only issue that arose with the legislation at that time was the sustainability of the clinics," Remus was saying. "Wolfsbane being as expensive as it is to make, it was impossible to keep the population in a permanent supply. Of course Miss McClane's department has one of the foremost-ranking experts in the country working on a cure, which as you can imagine would make this quite a different story. Rather than needing to supply a growing population on a monthly basis for an indefinite period of time, every self-reported wolf would merely drink the potion once and be done with it. In terms of funding, we could potentially even operate directly out of the Ministry building, saving on the need to build and maintain an independent location."

"May I ask a question?" one of them cut in.

"Of course," I said.

"I'm not sure I understand. If the end goal is a cure, why do we need to waste our time with passing new laws?"

I glanced at Remus. "Well, the cure's not finished yet, sir," I said bluntly. "We're talking about the interim. These men and women need access to jobs and housing now." I hesitated. "And again, we're talking about a best-case scenario, as far as curing lycanthropy goes. As I'm sure you know, people have tried many means to erase this affliction for centuries now. Smart lawmakers consider contingency plans."

Dad nodded almost imperceptibly. I still found it hard to read him sometimes, but I wanted to think he seemed impressed. He wasn't alone, either. Nodding and murmuring passed like a wave through the men around the table.

"You've made a strong case, the both of you," one of them spoke. "We'll be taking your presentation under consideration. Maybe it's worth taking a closer look at old laws from time to time. Expect to hear from us about proceeding to the next stage at some point in the next few months. But I'd imagine this isn't the end of this."

I nodded politely and we both stood together, filing out of the door we'd entered barely an hour prior.

Maybe there was, in fact, reason to hope after all.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thank you to new followers, favorites, and reviewers!

* * *

" _Sure, there were other factors—my dad was a drunk as well, likely his dad before him. But once I was bitten, I saw no reason to stop. Even at my best—even if I quit altogether—I'd still be a werewolf. I could turn my whole life around and still be written off as a monster. So why_ not _drink, then?"_

— _Subject 72_

* * *

My mother was distracted and the tea was cold. I'd been home for an hour and nothing was exactly normal since. She'd put tea leaves into ice water and the pot was just sitting on the kitchen table before me, without a platter or coaster of any kind, empty of steam.

Only a couple of boarders were staying with us for the holidays. Christmas was never busy in years past, as it was typically one of the only times of year that those with family could go and stay with them. So I remember Christmases at my mother's through an unshakably lonely lens, the few guests that remained always wandering sadly through the halls like ghosts with no purpose. Haunted holidays.

Usually Mum bought an assortment of fruit pies in lieu of baking and elaborately decorated a Christmas tree in the parlor, but this year was different for a reason I hadn't yet been able to place. There was the tea, of course. The tree was up but still bare, an unswept circle of pine needles shed in a halo around it on the floor. No pie to speak of, but some stale biscuits were arranged haphazardly on a plate to my left, like an afterthought. I bit into another for something to do. A sugary nothing bite that crumbled audibly against my teeth.

Mum bustled back in and paused for a moment, as if she'd forgotten I was here.

"Aren't you going to sit?" I asked her flatly. "I'm only here for a few days."

"Oh, but there's the laundry," she said, wringing her hands in the perfect approximation of a harried housewife. "And the presents, the food—"

"Mum." I flicked my wand and the wooden chair across from me sprang back, startling her. "Please."

She looked at me warily before taking a seat.

"You're acting very strange," I informed her, spinning my empty teacup in my hands.

"It's the holidays," she said. "I get flustered."

"No, you don't. You draw power from them, like a weird Christmas fairy." I stared hard at her. "Mum, it's been three years since we've seen each other. Now I've come to spend Christmas with you and you won't even speak to me?"

She looked at me tight-lipped. It was true we hadn't seen each other since my graduation, two-and-a-half years prior. At first it had felt accidental—she was busy, I was busy—but as the first year away from home waxed on I realized distinctly that my mother had made a choice—daughter or partner—and I had not won out. We had not spoken of it directly, but I knew she was still with him.

I periodically received the odd care package every now and again, even though I was out of school, but there was never a letter enclosed, and Christmases since were uniformly spent at my dad's. This year, though, I'd received an out-of-the-blue invite and I was still wondering why.

"What changed, Mum?" I said impatiently. "Why now?"

My mother heaved a frustrated sigh. "No pleasantries, Cora?" She pushed the plate of cookies toward me. "Something to eat?"

"No, Mum." I threw my gaze around the room, suddenly finding it hard to look at her. "Does this have to do with Leonard?"

It was her turn to avoid my gaze. "No, I suppose my distance has had more to do with…"

"With what?"

"Frankly, Cora… your job."

"What do you mean, my job?"

My mother was never one for prejudice. My whole life she'd made an elaborate point of accepting every kind of person to stay in her home, regardless of creed or species or distinction between beast and being. As long as they had the money, they were welcome. I couldn't imagine now the issue she'd taken with my job.

"Are you… disappointed?" I asked, puzzled. "Did you not want me to work at the same place as Dad? Because we aren't even on the same floor; I hardly ever see him."

There I was again, slipping back into the catalog of earnest distancing and rewrites of reality that had become so familiar to me growing up with her. I hated myself for the words even as my lips shaped them; after all, I'd grown much closer to my father even as my mother pulled away.

She looked at me blankly, then rose and turned to face the fireplace. We never lit it, even in the winter—it was an embedded fossil of a forgotten time, the logs arranged in a ring purely for show. Everything coated in a snowy white layer of dust.

"Mum?"

She held out her wand and whispered to it. A flame sprang up before her, lighting the center of the wooden ring. I still couldn't see her; her back was to me.

"Did I ever tell you about my brother, Cora?"

Something dropped in my stomach, turned over. That deep dark feeling that I would not be able to come back from what followed. Yet coupled with a creeping excitement that I was ashamed to acknowledge, even to myself—that flush of terrible pleasure from learning the secrets of others.

"No." I cleared my throat. "Never."

Leaning against the mantle like that she looked taller somehow, even fear-inducing in the flickering light. I'd never looked so long at her back before; it was unfamiliar to me, the anonymous height of her, the slight hunch of her shoulders, a thin floral shawl wrapped tightly around her torso. From here I could pretend she was a stranger, and almost believe it. Anything to make her words easier to swallow.

"You had an uncle, Cora. One you never met." The fire licked closer to the edges of its stone enclosure, hungry. "And you should've had the chance to. I'm sorry you didn't. Orpheus, that was his name. Baby brother O. Our beloved nuisance."

She was quite close to the fire, I thought. Perhaps she was cold. It was so cold in her house tonight.

"Can you guess where this is going?" she asked me then, her voice uncharacteristically high-pitched. Something was off. The fire, the dark, the way she wasn't looking at me. Something clicked.

"Orpheus… was a werewolf?"

"Close." She turned to face me very suddenly. Her eyes were dark, her face taut with emotion. "Bitten. He never got that far. Never made it to his first full moon. And do you know why that is, Cora? Can you guess?"

I shook my head numbly.

"I killed him," my mother said. "I killed my brother."

* * *

Did we grow careless?

Perhaps there was a part of both of us that wanted to be found out. For Remus, especially, I can't imagine how it was—to live in secret, always on borrowed time, knowing that the moment your true identity was uncovered everything else you'd done would mean nothing, that nothing could erase the way they saw you now, and this meant starting over. I tried not to think about it, the hundreds of times he'd begun anew. How maybe we were jeopardizing that in the time we spent together. Of course I was selfish. Selflessness has never been a strength of mine, not the way it was for him. And I think his weak moments always occurred precisely when they shouldn't have.

It was after midnight and we'd been in his office for hours. It was March and even a so-so student like me was beginning to worry about impending NEWTs, the idea that the last seven years were all just preparation for this test that would, on all perceivable counts, determine my future. Remus had come to notice this growing concern of mine and offered to help in his capacity as a teacher. As we made our way through the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook I'd begun to surprise myself by having the right answers. We were nearing the end of the book.

He turned the page, laughed quietly to himself. He was sitting on his desk, legs crossed, steadying him against the table's length. I was in an easy chair a few feet to his left, the book's pages just beyond my line of vision.

"Tell me, Cora," he said softly, his voice barely above a whisper, so I had to lean forward to hear. "Three ways of identifying a werewolf."

I laughed, the sound emanating from me in a nervous rush.

"Why are they in the book anyway? They don't put other beings in there—"

Remus smiled bitterly. "I'm not a being anymore, Cora. Come on, now. Three identifying factors."

I was trying to make light; I couldn't see why he was being so serious all of a sudden—we'd just spent ten minutes giggling incoherently about the red cap's desperate fear of beauty—all the hilarious ways its weakness could be used to defeat it—"Remus, come on—"

He turned and threw the book down behind him on the desk suddenly. The sound of collision was violent, sudden, forced my hands to the arms of the chair. I clamped my fingers tight.

"They're trying to _protect_ you, Cora, goddammit, they're trying to keep you safe. That's what this whole goddamn class has always been about, for centuries now. That's what the damn school's for. Come on. Three identifiers."

It was hard, somehow, to think about the wolf in theory when one was standing before me in the flesh. Knowing so much of what I knew, so far beyond this basic outline of him that the textbook attempted without much empathy to create—a skeleton of a person, a threat sketched hastily around an ignorant concept of fear.

"List the three."

He wasn't even looking at me, instead staring at the now-closed book with a kind of silent, seething anger that crimped the corners of his eyes.

"Pale skin," I recited, picturing the neatly numbered list as it appeared in my worn copy of _Dark Arts and Their Defenses._ My eyes traced his body, searching for the book's tell-tale signs. His white fingers, drained of color.

A sudden knock startled both of us. His eyes widened and he looked to me, as if seeing me differently in that moment, understanding how I would look to anyone else who found me here at this hour. What it would mean for him.

"The bedroom," he whispered furtively, gesturing to the door I'd never entered across the way from his desk. I nodded silently, crossed the room without a sound and slipped into the adjacent one, leaving the door cracked to let a sliver of light through.

I'd never been in his bedroom before. Like the rest of his space, this room, too, was decidedly minimalist in its furnishings. A double bed rested on an oak frame flanked by a small table, an empty glass and a book of fables set neatly on its surface. A wardrobe tucked away in the corner, which I knew would only be half full. I tried to fashion some greater understanding of him from this first glimpse, but the truth was Remus left very little of himself behind wherever he went. Though the off-center placement of his bed did strike me, the way it was pushed right up to the window. How there were no curtains to shield him from the presence of that pale white orb.

"How are you on this lovely night, Remus?" I heard an instantly recognizable voice waft in from the office. Dumbledore. But why now? Strange as the headmaster was, I hadn't heard of any proclivities for visiting teachers in the middle of the night.

Remus cleared his throat. "Just getting some work done, Headmaster." There was the soft thunk of a book cover opening and closing, as if to illustrate his point. "Lesson plans."

A thrill shot through me at the sound of his lie, impossible to separate from the fear it accompanied.

The floorboards creaked. Dumbledore chuckled.

"Late to be lesson planning, Remus. You students deserve you better rested. We can't have Severus filling in for every class, now, can we?"

"I've had trouble sleeping, Headmaster," Remus said shortly. The moon cycle was clearly affecting him tonight—I could pick out the differences even more clearly when he was in conversation with someone else, his normally calm and placid demeanor turned on its side, where it was sharpest.

"You've done good work this year in spite of it, my boy," Dumbledore continued. There was the sudden breezy noise of air being forced out of a cushion; he must have taken a seat in the chair I'd occupied moments ago. Remus remained silent and stationary. "I know you see it as well. The students are genuinely excited to attend your classes. More than I can say for, well, a number of years prior, unfortunately."

"Please, Dumbledore," Remus almost growled. "Don't act like this position was offered to me out of anything more than pity. I've paid attention. You reached out to me just days after Umbridge announced her anti-wolf employment campaign. Even I can draw connections that simple on a good night."

"But why should the circumstances of your hiring diminish the excellent work you've done?"

"It doesn't make any difference," Remus said. "It won't change anything."

"And that's where you're wrong, I think. You've always made yourself invaluable, Remus, and you're still far from enumerating all the ways you'll prove to be a force for good going forward." Dumbledore cleared his throat. "But there is one thing I'd like to talk to you about."

There was a long, stretching moment of silence. The door to the bedroom blew slightly toward me, though there was no reason for a draft. I held my breath.

"What is it?" Remus said tersely.

"I think you already know."

"I'm not a mindreader, Headmaster."

Dumbledore sighed, betraying some great exhaustion. "Remus, I'm sure you know what I'm going to say. The McClane girl."

A long pause.

"What about her?" The silence had betrayed him.

"You seem to be spending a great deal of time with her."

"What of it?"

"To anyone paying attention, it might suggest the appearance of impropriety. You understand, Remus."

"So I can help the other students, but I can't help the ones who really need me."

"What do you—"

"So many years here, Headmaster, and you still fail to realize the way some people slip through the cracks. You notice my behavior with her, yet fail to observe that same girl's panic attack the night of Black's break-in?"

All I could hear after that was the continued shifting of Remus' body, the now-familiar restlessness of the week leading up to the change. A constant rhythm. Back and forth.

"I won't distance myself from someone who needs me," Remus continued. "If you trust a werewolf to teach your students, certainly you can trust me when I say that nothing untoward has occurred between the two of us. I shouldn't even have to address such a thing, but I imagine Snape has kept a close eye on me. Just waiting for a mistake to report back." He chuckled bitterly.

The cushion again, Dumbledore rising. "These are my concerns alone, Remus, and now I've shared them with you—albeit at an unusually late hour. Do what you will with them; perhaps with the added clarity which accompanies a good night's sleep?" A door—not mine—creaked open, though I jumped anyway. "Do let the record show, though, that I've always trusted you. You're a maker of good decisions, my boy, and I've depended on that this year whether you believe me or not. Your abilities as an instructor are unparalleled, and never for a second think I hired you because of any witless law. You are creating change in these young people's lives, and that is what's most important."

Remus didn't say anything in response. I fervently imagined a nod or other minute physical acknowledgement—some sign that he had tucked Dumbledore's words away for later, some day that they would mean more to him than they did now. Then came the sound of the door closing, a high-pitched, reverberating creak, and Remus stood before me in that barren bedroom.

He didn't say anything. Likely he wasn't sure what to say at all, knowing that I'd heard as much as I did. He leaned there in the shadows of the doorway, and I hovered back near that wide dark window, afraid to move.

He cleared his throat. "You have to—"

"Please—" I began.

"You have to go, Cora."

I hated the way he said my name then. As if something was ending.

* * *

"Mum, what do you mean you _killed_ —"

"He came home that night covered in blood," she interrupted. Her voice was hard and steely, the memory like an incantation on her lips. She was calling her dead brother forth. Speaking about him as a kind of resurrection.

"This sweet boy, barely sixteen, all of his life ahead of him, though I saw the bites and saw that future dissolving before both of us, these impossibly big gashes, so deep, cutting clean to the bone of his forearm." She heaved a great, shuddering gasp. "He'd been out hunting. He liked to do that. I never understood why. The whole activity struck me as dreadfully barbaric, but he enjoyed it. I guess it made him feel older than he was, or stronger somehow. He stayed out too late that night. He should have known better."

She was facing the fire again, gazing into it with such intensity it seemed she was seeing something more than flames there. She seemed to have forgotten I was sitting in the room at all. It was like she was speaking to the fire, as if releasing this memory would call Orpheus out of the ashes.

"I didn't understand at first. I tried to dress the wound," she went on. "Mum and Dad were gone so it was just me; I was barely eighteen and I'd never seen so much blood but we had bandages in one of the cupboards, so I tried to wrap the wound. But it wouldn't stop bleeding. It soaked through every white strip, no matter how many times I wrapped his arm. And that was when I realized there was something wrong about the whole thing, that it was more than just an animal bite. And then I looked at him, because I guess I must've been afraid to… he hadn't stopped crying. And I looked at him and then I knew why.

"He asked me to do it. Said he couldn't live like this, couldn't bear it. He didn't want to try. And as much as I loved him, or maybe _because_ I did, I knew he was right. That his life would be a shadow of how it was. That he'd lived long enough to know what he would be missing out on, that he'd have to coexist with those memories forever, as he rolled through the endless cycle of hardship that was brought upon him that night." She tried to breathe. "I've lived my entire life waiting for something else to be that hard again."

I watched my mother stand there, the edges of her wavering and flickering before the fire. Comfort seemed impossible. I wanted to speak but no words ever reached my lips. Every sentiment died in my throat, over and over again, as the seconds ticked by and anything I could have offered her began to mean less and less. Shadows danced across the stone walls surrounding us. She had nothing else to say.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: A heartfelt thank-you to kmcartneyyyy, drwatson, and all my guest reviewers!

* * *

" _Relationships? Mostly anonymous. Brief. Then there's no one to explain the absences to, the sickness. But no one can go without human connection altogether. Not even me."_

— _Subject 33_

* * *

"I love these things," Will said.

"That's not what I expected you to say," I laughed as we gazed around the ballroom from our winding stairway vantage point. My father's New Year's parties were known for their obscene luxury, an unabashed display of wealth becoming more and more rare among those with a conscience. But Xavier never failed to be seduced by the promise of a new start, and so he rang in year after year surrounded by a thousand of his closest friends.

"No, really, I love them," Will continued earnestly, swishing some alcoholic amber liquid in his wineglass.

"You're more social than I am, then."

"Am I? I don't know. I just love small talk. I love engaging people in heated conversations about the weather. The eternal question of whether or not it'll snow. How cold it is. How grandiose the party. Observing the other person's realization of how much they care about such inconsequential things."

I watched his eyes as he spoke, the exaggerated energy of his gestures. To have learned what I did about my mother and then to be here in my father's home sipping drinks with Will and listening to him wax on about his investment in the inconsequential felt surreal. Many times in the last week I'd caught myself watching my own interactions from far away, somewhere above myself, unable to shake the small and meaningless nature of almost every encounter.

My mother killed her brother.

 _Isn't it a beautiful party?_

My uncle was a werewolf.

 _Do you think it'll snow?_

I watched myself drain my glass as Will continued to speak, his excitement dulling to a low drone in my ears like the soft buzz of a dragonfly.

"I like making other people feel comfortable," he was saying, then looked meaningfully at me and paused. "It doesn't seem like I'm doing that for you, though, Cora."

"What?"

He gestured to my empty glass as I was in mid-sip, apparently attempting to swallow air for the sake of something to do with my hands.

"I'll get you some water," he said with half a smile as he took my glass.

I began to look around the room in a daze. Without the glass in my hand I felt even stranger, nothing for my fingers to clutch or fidget with. And that's what I'd been doing, really, for the last week—distracting myself. There was one thing I'd avoided confronting, even in my own mind: that the moment my mother told me what had happened, what she'd done, I'd hastily done the math, my heart in my throat, trying desperately to confirm that in fact, Remus could _not_ have been the wolf who bit Orpheus, that the timeline was impossible. I'd breathed a sigh of relief when my brain snapped back to reality and I remembered that my mother was older than Remus, that the numbers couldn't possibly match up in a way that made him the culprit. And then I'd put it out of my mind before dealing with the second question, which was whether I could have continued to allow my feelings for him if the opposite was true. Whether I would have been able to stop.

Avoiding the issue, however, meant avoiding the wolf himself. We'd planned to meet for lunch the day of the New Year's party, to talk strategy should any members of the Wizengamot be present. It had been Remus' idea and would have been useful, too, considering how many of them were milling about right now, slightly drunk, and how often politics came down to exactly this: getting some lawmaker another glass of brandy and engaging in light contest to predict upcoming snowfall to the centimeter.

But I'd begged off the meeting with some made-up excuse about helping my father prepare for that night. Mostly I'd slumped around the house in a satin robe I'd found in a guest room closet, drinking off-tasting sherry and questioning my motivations. And here he was anyway, a force in his own right. Walking around with two drinks in hand at all times, laughing with a trail of men I recognized from the committee meeting. When it came down to it, I seemed superfluous. The ease of his interactions made me unreasonably suspicious, even jealous in that moment, an unfamiliar feeling when it came to Remus. Why should tonight be so easy for him? Why was he so much stronger than I?

When Will came back with our drinks I excused myself to wander around the room aimlessly, half-following Remus as he moved from one government official to the next. It seemed as though our more recent meeting had made up for the incident with the white-haired man at that first party—how quickly the politicians can put the past behind them when majority support seems near. I should've been happier, watching Remus talk and laugh with the people who had the power to change his life. This was what taking control of himself again looked like. And yet I couldn't shake the deep, persistent sense of foreboding that followed me back and forth across the ballroom floor. The note my mother had sent me, arriving just this morning: _Don't tell anyone what I did._

At some point Remus took notice of me, beckoned me toward him. He was talking with my father, of all people, their heads bent together conspiratorially. Remus towered a good six inches over Xavier, so he had to hunch his shoulders slightly just to carry on a conversation. I turned instead and made for the balcony, feeling suddenly ill, letting their bodies and faces recede behind me. Something about the glass-paned French door seemed inherently comforting the closer I got. I was aware, in a vague sort of way, that I was drunk.

Outside smelled damp. The wrought iron railing was a shock to my senses, but the cold brought me back down from the flurry of my thoughts.

I could hear footsteps behind me—of course, hadn't I expected as much, always the hero, always the good guy, and always at his own expense.

"All right, Cora. Now you're just being difficult."

I turned to look at him, framed by the outline of those glass French doors. He'd somehow managed to buy a new suit—probably an investment in blending better with those who attended the parties like this one. It was simple, plain black, but fit well and emphasized his height, made his presence unintentionally commanding. He'd thrown me off just by following after at me, looking at me now. I groped for my anger.

"I've done plenty," I said. "I'm allowed to have an off day. You wouldn't even be here without me."

Some part of me stung to watch him shrink back as I spoke, a ghost of something dark and lonely passing over his face.

"Why are you acting like this? I thought we were on the same side."

"Maybe it can't be divided so easily. Maybe it isn't about sides at all. Us and them. Or us and you?"

"What are you saying?" I'd done it; something had slipped down over his features and hardened them, a kind of guard. I knew it well. I'd just never seen it directed at me before.

I turned away and leaned out far over the balcony railing, so that my torso was horizontal to the ground three floors below. From some angles, I thought, I might appear to be flying. I heard Remus walk closer to me, could imagine him standing uncertainly behind me, his arms moving up from his sides to catch me if I fell.

"Was it… was it something at your mum's?" he whispered uncertainly. We could hear the clinking of glasses a room away, scattered laughter breaking our silence like the erratic chirping of crickets. "Did something happen?"

I hated how easily knowable I was. How my fears and disappointments and concerns could be so quickly calculated. Irrationally I wanted to hurt him, to create distance again between us. It was too hard to be so close to someone who understood so well and yet never be able to touch them.

"Remus… I just need to know…" I paused. I was still leaning out over the edge. If I focused my eyes at their uppermost point I could almost block out the ground below me, the flat snowy expanse that surrounded us. Nothing but cool black sky if you looked up.

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

He stepped back. I could feel his heat receding and hear the beat of his worn leather shoes on the cold tile.

"What?"

"Have you… have you ever…" The moment of courage had been brief and now was already faltering. But the inquiry still hung there in the distance stretching between us, unanswered. He stared at me, eyes wide, still beautiful but now afraid. Guarding something.

"Wh—why would you—"

I could hear my father's voice then, his New Year's toast wafting out to us from inside, though he could have been a thousand miles away at that point. I could hear his words but was unable to process them, instead going back and forth over the fact that Remus had not yet told me no. No, he hadn't killed anyone. I needed to _hear_ it.

"Why are you asking me this?" The question was cold and stern, yet I thought I sensed something else in his tone. A hint of desperation.

"Why can't you answer me?"

He looked at me for a moment that stretched too long. "You really think I'm capable of that?"

My thoughts flashed to my mother. Knowing what she had done, having to bear the weight of that information on my own. The idea that a person I loved so deeply could do something so awful. I didn't know if I should tell him. Tell anyone. Especially of my newfound fear that what my mother was capable of now also extended to everyone else in my life.

He took a breath. "Almost," he said.

"What do you—"

"I mean almost." He wasn't looking at me. "Years I kept myself in check. My whole life, practically. Then, the year I taught at Hogwarts. Three students on the grounds one night."

I thought of the severity of the injuries he'd had, that last day in Hogwarts before he'd left for good. I wondered how many of them were self-inflicted.

"But I've never taken a life," Remus said steadily. "I've made mistakes and I've come close, but I've never lost myself completely. And that matters a good deal to me." He paused. "I would have hoped there were certain truths about me you never felt you had to question. Certain… guarantees. But I can understand why you had to ask."

Did he? The look on his face then, like something had torn away between us.

"I'm sorry," I said, pushing away from the balcony railing. The snow slipped out of my vision. We could hear the countdown happening just beyond the door: joyous, drunken numbers being shouted into the wide-open space, signifying something slightly different to each person. Change, promise, freedom. And here we were, on the outside of all that, without even a single flute of champagne between the two of us.

We still had a few seconds of the year left. He pulled me to him and kissed me once, very briefly, on my forehead. A sudden indulgence after the events of the night. His hand wound through my hair more slowly, inciting gentle chills down the length of my back. I looked up at him in confusion and he just smiled, sadly shaking his head.

 _Three_ , they screamed on the other side of the glass.

 _Two._

 _One._

* * *

Attempt #20

2 1/2 c powdered aconite

3 tbsp essence of dittany

1 c fluxweed, shredded

1/2 cup valerian oil

1 tsp powdered silver

8 5-cm strips wiggentree bark, stewed separately

1 1/2 tbsp crushed moonseed

1/4 c lavender buds

1/2 tsp powdered silver

Notes: Another failure. It's been six months now. The Veritaserum Immunity Draught took me two years. I believe I have it within me to do this, eventually. I'm just beginning to doubt whether a year is enough time.


	12. Chapter 12

" _That's the thing, though—it doesn't matter if the human part of you loves someone—a woman, say—or wants to keep her safe, or even hates her. To the other you, the once-a-month you, everyone is just a body. Everyone is the same. Something to bite. Something to make like you."_

— _Subject 87_

* * *

An eviction notice was plastered to Remus' front door. Stark black-and-white letters, every one a capital, his name scrawled haphazardly across the page in dripping ink.

It was the day after the party, and I'd come to his flat in hopes of ameliorating the situation and—selfishly—also in search of comfort. Despite our resolution I still felt guilty for the things I'd said, the accusations I'd levied against him. I didn't know how to cope with my newfound realization that I was not as removed from prejudice as I'd believed, and so I thought, paradoxically, of Remus. He'd always insisted, after all, that I should not feel obligated to work through my worries in isolation. But now I was here and he was nowhere to be found.

The date on the notice was a week ago. My heart sank as I read on. Remus hadn't said a single word about it last night. I imagined him packing his belongings alone, each motion painfully familiar, wondering where he would go next. A cold wind blew and I shivered, pulling my robes tighter around myself, and moved closer to the door.

It was a single sheet, affixed to the wood with Spellotape. Written across the neat black lines under "Reason for Eviction" was just two words:

DIRTY WOLF

Guilt coursed through me in heavy, nauseating waves. All of this had been going on behind the scenes, while I was obliviously wrapped up again in maternal drama. It made me ill to think that I'd drunkenly demanded Remus tell me whether he'd ever killed anyone, when more than ever he'd just needed someone to believe in him. My heart ached for what he'd been put through, these two words surely emblazoned across his mind as he talked to partygoers last night, as he followed my drunk and insistent stride to the balcony, as he kissed me just before the clock struck midnight. And, to make matters worse, it was likely he'd been evicted because of the work we were doing together. The Prophet had covered our committee meeting, and Remus was back in the public eye for the first time since his year at Hogwarts.

I tried to rip the notice from the door, but it withstood my efforts. I attempted a second time, a third, before realizing the landlord had magicked it into place. He wanted everyone who came this way—every neighbor, every postman, every unassuming passerby—to know what he thought of Remus, and what he had done about it.

I stormed downstairs. The flat was over a pub, and I remembered Remus mentioning that the same man owned both. It was evening and he was working, of course, the pub echoing with quiet weeknight bustle. On any other day I might've found it inviting. The room was small, but cheery and bright.

The patrons all turned to look at me when I burst in—irate, red-faced, the only woman in the room. The man behind the bar raised his eyebrows at me, a smirk carving his cheeks. I knew in that moment Remus had not fought him. Had seen the sign, packed up his things, and left without a word.

"Problem, missy?"

"That man," I spat. "The one you kicked out of his home. It's illegal. I—I'm with the Ministry."

At this point all of the men in the room were looking at me, not with any real concern but mere curiosity instead, as if I were some kind of spectacle: a bird who'd flown into the room by mistake and become trapped.

"It's not illegal."

"What are you talking about?"

The landlord set a glass bottle down and leaned against the counter with an ease that made my blood curdle. "Well, he _would_ have been allowed to stay," the man said. "But it clearly states in the lease that a werewolf must disclose his condition at the time of application." He shrugged. "He didn't. So when I found out, he had to go."

It was really this simple for people like him.

"You're disgusting. A coward."

The man crossed his arms. "Your wolf should have followed the rules."

 _My wolf_. As if he would've ever been approved for the unit if he'd identified himself up-front.

I stood, fuming silently, as the bar carried back on around me. I wanted to break glasses, I wanted to strangle the man, but I knew none of these things would be productive. And I knew part of me was still angry with myself, wanting desperately to take it out on others. My first priority should be figuring out where Remus had gone.

I reoriented, approached the bar and asked in a different voice, "Do you know where he went?"

The man had just turned his back to grab a mug from the shelves and so his response seemed to emanate from all of him, his body, his core, instead of just his mouth:

"Who cares?"

* * *

What I remember is being in Remus' office for the last time. Soft patter of rain on the windows. The smell of worn leather as he packed his trunk. There wasn't much, never would be, but the process was still slow going; whatever had happened to him during the most recent full moon had not involved curling up in his wolfsbane state and waiting for the night to pass. He was covered in dark purple bruises; several bandages were wound inexpertly around his hands and I thought I could see a makeshift splint peeking out from beneath a pant leg as he walked back and forth across the tiny room.

All I knew at that point was that someone had leaked the truth of his identity. Remus' lycanthropy had become cheap hallway gossip overnight. The Slytherins were making crass jokes about him in the Great Hall over breakfast. A curl in Draco Malfoy's lip.

"Who was it? Who let it slip?" I was asking desperately. Upon hearing the news I'd run immediately to his office, imagining a scenario of comfort. I found him packing instead, unnervingly calm. I still wasn't sure if he had planned to tell me he was leaving.

"Tell me." The office felt like it was shrinking around the two of us as I spoke. He still hadn't said a word, instead removing his books ritualistically from their shelves, handled with utmost care. The attached wall seemed to grow closer to us as he pulled away from it, everything only getting tighter and more claustrophobic. This place of solace was fast becoming something else, something I didn't recognize. This was the memory I'd be left with, and there was a vague futility in trying to change what was happening. I attempted anyway.

"You could talk to Dumbledore," I offered, thinking quickly. "There's always something—"

"Cora, please." He stacked the books into his trunk, their worn leather spines sticking out just over the lip. "You know about the curse, don't you?"

"The one on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position?" I sputtered. "You don't really believe—"

He just smiled at me quietly, snapping the lock on his trunk closed with his wand.

"I know when it's time for me to go. I'm not upset; you shouldn't be either."

Anger shot through me, white-hot. "You're relieved. You're happy to be going."

He spread his fingers across the trunk's surface and leaned over it, closer to me. "No, Cora, that's not what I—"

"My apologies, Remus," I said with an air of mock coolness. "Have I made you uncomfortable, this last year? I'm so sorry. You should have said something sooner."

"Cora," he said again, haltingly. "I do care a great deal for you. But—"

"I've misread some things." I nodded curtly. "You were trying not to hurt me. But you've been worried I'd get you into trouble. That night Dumbledore came. And now you're going. Well, you'll be safe now, Remus. I won't cause any more trouble."

"I care about you," he repeated, unmoving, his hands still spread on the trunk. I realized it wasn't even his departure that upset me so, but rather his reaction, the dulled acceptance. An understanding that there was nothing for him here. And a denial of what I knew he'd felt for me. Even if he couldn't admit it now.

"One day I'll tell you what happened last night," Remus said. "And I think as you grow older you'll begin to understand. That our feelings for people are never black and white. That trust is more complicated than believing in a single person implicitly." He paused and pressed his lips into a single thin line. "That perhaps it was selfish of me to spend so much time with a student. That I was taking advantage of your feelings. That I was lonely."

"Why does the motivation matter? We had that time together regardless. It meant something. Don't mar it retroactively because you feel guilty now."

"Oh, but I have plenty to feel guilty about." Abruptly he snapped the handle of his trunk upright and lifted. "I must be going, Cora. You understand."

He always said that when I didn't; I felt I'd never get this, the moment, what he was saying, why he was leaving. In fact this would be the last I saw of him for the next two years: his back to me, his final exit, those broad shoulders weighted down with the world.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Shoutout to awesome reviewers drwatsonn and ArcticJacs! Feel free as always to send your thoughts my way—I've loved hearing from my readers thus far.

* * *

" _Transformation takes so much physical energy that all I can do in the moment after is lie flat on the ground and wait for my breath to come back to me. Some nights it never does."_

— _Subject 39_

* * *

Around this time I began seeing Leonard in London. In the streets. On the stairs. In the reflections on store windows, standing next to me, that jagged grin my mother found a way to fall in love with splitting his face in two.

January was the month that Remus disappeared and I gained a terrifying shadow. To this day I can't tell you whether the glimpses I had were reality, premonition, or some threatening amalgam of the two. But they brought me back to the claustrophobic fear of that bedroom all the same. Like I was seventeen all over again and he had just closed the door behind me.

The first time I thought I saw Leonard was the day after my confrontation with Remus' landlord. I was late getting to work that morning. Not knowing what to do after leaving Remus' now-vacant flat, I'd apparated to the forest and cried myself to sleep against the trunk of a very supportive birch. Now I was exhausted, my back ached, and it was all I could do as I walked to pick the leaves out of my hair and focus on my path as I progressed through London toward the Ministry.

It was then that I saw him. Leonard, pacing toward me. An evil blue flash of his eyes.

I stopped in my tracks, the usual horde of morning commuters streaming past on either side of me, hardly noticing—I was just another fork in the river, another strange girl in city streets. The man I thought was Leonard passed me in an instant, so quickly that I spun and could no longer find him in the crowd. I continued to search desperately, actually backtracking to see if I could pick him out of the passersby again. Nothing. A cold wind gusted through my thin coat, inciting a full-body shudder.

Needless to say, I was unnerved. I hadn't seen Leonard since the summer he'd attacked me and my mother had denied it, the summer that split me from her in such a painful and permanent way. She hadn't mentioned him directly at Christmas, but I knew they were still together. I vaguely remembered that he came to London on business occasionally… but it _couldn't_ be him. Surely I was seeing things. Surely my visit home had simply forced the past back up.

I said this to myself at the time because it was what I needed to believe in order to move forward. It was January second and my hair was full of leaves and far stranger things had happened to me in the last week. I needed routine, order—even if that meant faking it. So I put this glimpse of Leonard out of my mind and proceeded to the Ministry. By the time an hour had passed I'd spruced up in our dingy bathroom, exchanged my usual snarky morning banter with Margaret, and just about convinced myself it was all in my head. That my emotional and physical exhaustion were simply playing tricks on me.

Little did I know this would not be the last time I saw my mother's lover.

* * *

"Aren't you at the halfway point?" Dad was saying.

"Wh-what?" I thought I'd seen Leonard again in the restaurant, moving between tables, ogling one of the young waitresses as she navigated with her heavy tray levitating out in front of her. I looked again and he was another man instead, a young wizard with sharp blue eyes, who met my frightened stare with bemused curiosity.

"Cora," Dad cleared his throat and tapped the table between us, as if calling a meeting to order. "Cora, please."

"Sorry." My gaze dropped. The man had exited the restaurant with a raucous group of young wizards—blokes from the Quidditch department, from the looks of it. Leonard was nowhere to be seen. Of course not. Of course. He was a Muggle. He wouldn't be here.

"I was thinking about your grant," Dad continued, both eyes carefully trained on me. "It's been about six months. Usually one holds some sort of event, as a kind of update for the donors who contributed to your cause. It's a way of thanking them, and also assuring them that you've used their funds to make progress."

I thought fleetingly of Will, his potions robes now permanently stained in splotches of purple and blue, like a bruise. How he stood upstairs in his little laboratory and watched cauldron after cauldron combust. Had we made any progress at all? Or just discovered new ways to make things explode?

"Think of it like this—these events tend to make for good publicity, which can't hurt." Dad pushed a charred piece of meat around the plate with his fork, appetite uncharacteristically absent. "I'll take care of it. We'll hold it at the manor."

I scanned the room again but saw only younger faces, a sea of them, mostly laughing. It was possible that Dad was the oldest person in the room. He looked at me then, with such a serious expression.

"Where is Remus, Cora?" he asked suddenly. As if he knew the last night I'd seen Remus was the last night he'd seen him, too, that he'd disappeared without a word since, humiliated, his flat left vacant and lonely.

"Busy, Dad." I didn't want to admit I didn't know; I wondered if he was already aware of the eviction. Dad had a way of finding things out. Things people didn't always want him to know. Staying informed, he called it. Disguised as constituent concern.

He stared at me across the table for a long moment, lips pursed, and then he finally put his fork down, the final bite still remaining on his plate.

"Is this really the man you want to pin everything on? Your career, your future… your l—"

"What if someone had asked you the same about Mum, Dad?" I interrupted. "Before she left you. What would you have said to them?"

He didn't have any response to that, my father.

* * *

Days passed and still Remus did not return to the Ministry. I knew Margaret had noticed but for some reason was choosing not to say anything, blowing her gum bubbles quietly as I went about my research and occasional interviews. We settled back into the routine we'd established before Remus' autumn reappearance with an ease that frightened me. But quickly I attempted to tamp down the fear. Wherever he was—maybe on an Order mission, I told myself—he was a grown man with no obligation to me, just another former student. He could take care of himself. I pushed the kiss he'd given me on New Year's from my mind—it was starting to feel more and more like a goodbye, and I couldn't bear the idea. He'd already left me once. Instead I decided to operate as if nothing had changed at all—I RSVP'd to the grant gala with Remus as my plus-one and went about my work.

One such day I came into the office to be greeted with Margaret's somber pronouncement that Fenrir Greyback had bitten yet another child. Her gaze lingered on my face after she said the words, like she was waiting for something to click into place. And it had. I hurried over to our filing cabinets, still wearing my coat, and began pulling all the information we had on Greyback.

"Do we know how long he's been active?" I asked.

"Decades," Margaret responded slowly, lifting her feet down from their usual spot on top of her desk. "No one really knows how old he is, but he's been biting people since the forties, at least." She watched as I continued to shuffle through our yellowed files, pulling every name, noting every date. "Why?"

Of course. She'd seen the look on my face in advance, but she didn't actually know what I was thinking. My thoughts flashed to the last contact I'd had with my mother, her hurried note. _Don't tell anyone what I did._ Even now, she was ashamed of what my uncle had become before she'd killed him.

"I want to trace Greyback's attacks," I said truthfully. _I want to know if this monster is the reason my mother killed her brother._


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Thank you for the review, brittannes!

* * *

" _My greatest fear? Myself."_

— _Subject 17_

* * *

I could never handle boggarts.

For someone who lived with a fear like mine—constant high alert, adrenaline perpetually on the cusp of a spike—I knew there wasn't a chance of holding my own. Even the idea of contending with one in the confines of school was embarrassing—in front of my classmates, in front of my _professor._ The day Remus taught them in class was a memorable experience, early on in the semester, which cemented him as the best Defense teacher we'd had in seven years—or so I was told. I pretended to be sick that day, instead passing the time wandering corridors, following ghosts around, trying not to think about the things that frightened me. But I joined up with some classmates for lunch in the Great Hall afterwards and I knew Remus saw me there, my excuse of illness disintegrating with every bite I took. It was, at this point, too early in the year to know what he thought of me. It was before Black's night. Before the stairs.

Months later I found myself slipping into his classroom to wait for him. It was after Christmas, after I'd seen his wolf form and after things between us had resolved into something better but more intense, and we were now spending most evenings together, since he had nothing left to hide from me. Tonight, I thought, as I closed the door to the classroom behind me, we could sneak off to Hogsmeade, perhaps, a late-night trip to the Three Broomsticks, or—more likely—he'd gently coax me into continuing my NEWT studies, opening the Defense text to random pages as questions spilled out of him. Personally, I was leaning towards the butterbeer.

I walked across the room to his office and took a seat in the chair on the other side of his desk to wait for him. It was then that I noticed movement under the table—something in a trunk was shaking hard enough to wobble the legs of the desk itself. At this point in the year I was no stranger to the dark creatures that populated Remus' office—more often than not I'd enter the classroom to meet the eyes of a foul-intentioned grindylow, the crafty smirk of a red cap.

But this was different. A terrifying curiosity overtook me—one that I've never quite been able to explain, no matter how many times I think back over this moment. It's possible that I am drawn to what frightens me.

Slowly I crept around Remus' desk to better see the trunk. It continued to rock and shift, a brass clasp securing the lid in place—just barely, from the looks of it. Whatever was inside wanted out. I hesitated, though not long enough to truly think about what I was doing. With trembling hands I reached for the metal clasp, and lifted. And then, as I stumbled back onto my hands, Leonard rose from the trunk.

He seemed even taller—more menacing, somehow—and the expression on his face twisted into one of pleasure when he saw me cowering on the ground. I understood, in a vague sort of way, that it was not really him, that I should not have skipped class on boggart day, that avoiding hypothetical fear only meant the real thing would come for me later. I froze.

The thing pretending to be Leonard cackled and walked over to the office door, pushing it shut with a dull thud, mirroring the action Leonard had taken in the bedroom just a summer before. It was Leonard and I in the room again, together, alone: a living flashback. I could feel my breath speeding up. My chest began to heave. I scrabbled for my wand, which had fallen from my robes and rolled away. Even if I'd had it, though, I wouldn't have known the incantation that could save me.

Leonard advanced. The boggart, I noticed, did not get his stride exactly right—his expensive loafers levitated slightly off the ground, creating an eerie hover. He stalked toward me on an inch of air. I dove for my wand, which had rolled back under the desk, by the trunk, and leapt to my feet, my back pressed to the wall. He stood between me and the door, again, just as he had last summer. The boggart must have been picking through my memories of Leonard to find the ways to terrify me best, settling upon a symmetry with our last encounter. I held my wand out in my shaking right hand.

" _B-bombarda! Reducto! St-stupefy!_ " Had I been in class, of course, I would've known the boggart to be impervious to all of these. Not to mention that the spells themselves were hardly functional, given my mental state.

It moved like Leonard, it smiled like Leonard. When it spoke, it sounded like him, too.

"You're mine now." Dark, horrible laughter spilled from his throat. "She doesn't want you anymore. She's given you to me."

My mother. It even knew about _her_.

He paced closer with an agonizing slowness. I could see the whites of his eyes. I continued to scream spells, waving my wand uselessly; only a few hapless sparks emitted. At this point I could barely cast. He had almost reached me. I realized he'd been laughing all this time. I realized the other sound in my ears was my own sobs. I was hyperventilating. I didn't know what would happen when the boggart got to me—whether or not you could be killed by the manifestation of your fear—but it seemed as though I was about to find out.

"CORA!" Remus. Outside his office, in the classroom. I remembered him. I remembered where I was. The boggart turned, too. I heard my teacher's footsteps, the desks clattering as he pushed them out of his way in his haste, like he already knew that something was wrong. The boggart and I looked at each other. I saw Leonard cower for a moment—and then—

It shifted. There was a gray whirl, wispy like smoke—I could have run my fingers through the haze, he'd been that close—and then I was face-to-face with a wolf. A werewolf.

Remus burst through the door just in time to see the beast whip its claws into my shoulder. I cried out. My body went slack. I would've fallen, but the wolf was pinning me in place with just an arm. All I could see were teeth, then a white-hot flash as it dug in deeper, twisted its claws—it angled its jaw, positioned itself to bite the arm it had pinioned—I saw its green eyes— _his_ green eyes—I closed my own—

"RIDDIKULUS!" Remus shouted. The boggart-wolf turned away from me, snorting curiously, before clothing appeared spontaneously on his body—a bonnet, a cotton nightgown. Grandmother's clothing. Like in the fairytale.

Remus forced a harsh laugh that sounded like someone else's, then flicked his wand. The boggart again assumed that shapeless gray form as it flew back into the trunk, offering one last rattle before going still.

He crossed the room in three urgent strides just in time to catch me as my knees gave out. My breath was still coming hard and fast, forced out from my lungs in quick bursts as if by some external force. Like a fist pressing my chest. I felt sick. He felt warm and solid against me, and I melted instinctively into him. Neither of us spoke for a moment, caught in a limbo of shock and confusion, and then the dam broke. The humiliation of my helplessness, of what he had seen. And then the guilt of knowing what the boggart's second shift would mean to him.

"It was me," he said, as if he'd read my thoughts. He buried his face deep into my neck, my hair, his voice so thick that I could barely understand his next words.

"It was me," he repeated. He began to sob. "It had my eyes."

* * *

The idea that my uncle was bitten by Greyback—the same wolf who attacked Remus—began to obsess me. I spent more and more of my free time combing through our old files on his victims—the ones alive; the ones who died; the ones he attacked as a human, when the moon was not full.

I dragged a giant pinboard up from the basement, spread a map of the continent across it and begin to chart his movements over time, a different color pin for each new year. I was working my way slowly back to the year of Orpheus' death, excited to know the truth but also afraid. I became so caught up in the project that I began to neglect other things, like prepping for the Wizengamot assembly. More than once, someone showed up for an interview I'd forgotten about, to the point that Margaret had to hold one instead of me. The two of them left the room a mere half-hour later looking thoroughly unsettled. The man, a lean wizard in his late 40s, cast Margaret a last nervous glance before hurrying out of the office. She, in turn, stalked over to me and my map with a great, drawn-out sigh as she observed my handiwork.

"You can't keep _doing_ this to me," she said, crossing her arms. The many silver bracelets on her wrists jingled and chimed as she moved.

I flushed, fighting my instinct to cover the board from her view. I was— _technically_ —misusing our resources and maybe violating privacy as well, and I'd banked on Margaret not paying close attention to my actions. We were, strictly speaking, allowed to go the forest and identify new wolves who had not yet registered with the Ministry. We were allowed to interview them and record basic identifying information. But compiling data in this way to track any one werewolf—even Greyback—was out of line. I knew this. It was not my department's job to find him; such an assignment belonged to the aurors, not the person who'd sworn to help his kind. I was meant to offer support and little beyond that.

And yet, I needed to know who did it. I needed to know if Greyback was the one who had pushed my mother to commit her crime.

Margaret looked from the map to my face suspiciously—certainly not for the first time. I knew she sensed that something was amiss; I'd gone very quiet these last few weeks, working furiously, barely surfacing to say good morning and goodnight as she arrived and departed each day. Maybe it spoke to the growth of our begrudging camaraderie, the way she bit her lip and returned to her desk without another word. Or maybe she was just too lazy to do anything beyond that.

I told myself that if I worked hard enough, if I pulled enough files and pushed enough pins and copied the names of enough victims off decrepit little scraps of parchment, I would forget that I had not seen Remus in more than a month. I would finally stop wondering where he was sleeping at night, whether he was warm enough against the frigid February air, if he had enough to eat. If he was happy.

A statistic I'd memorized my first week on the job never fully left my mind: _62% of werewolves are homeless._ I imagined him in London's soup kitchens, huddled in abandoned buildings in the country, warming his hands on the edge of dying fires. I thought desperately, guiltily, over and over, of the question I'd asked him during our last conversation: _Have you ever killed anyone, Remus? Are you the reason anyone's dead?_ What that would've done to him, my trust in him, from his perspective, seemingly destroyed. I could see that now, his belief in a person he'd thought would always trust him. And so he ran. And so he disappeared. Maybe he was doing something for the Order, sure, or maybe he was just gone. Decided it was too much responsibility resting on his shoulders, decided he didn't want to be the spokesperson for an entire species and left it all behind after the night it became too much.

I tried not to think of him, often. But the truth is that even as I tracked Greyback's path across the continent I would have given all of that knowledge up in a heartbeat, just to know where Remus was on one of those nights.

* * *

Attempt #21

4 c powdered aconite,

1/2 c essence of dittany

1 c diced root of asphodel, stewed separately (see other notebook)

3 valerian sprigs

1/4 c cracked moonseed

1/4 c lavender buds

2 tsp essence of wormwood

1 tbsp liquid moondew

1 bezoar

1 silver nugget, pebble-sized

Notes: I have to keep trying.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: So grateful to reviewers drwatsonn and LoveFiction2019!

* * *

" _Of course I wish it hadn't been me who was bitten. But if it wasn't me, wouldn't it just be someone else?"_

— _Subject 68_

* * *

Maybe I knew Kingsley Shacklebolt was coming before he showed up at our door. My dreams in the week leading up—when I slept at all—had been shrouded in shadow, always ending with the silhouette of an imposing man filling the doorway just before I awoke. I'd been worried it was Leonard, my mind unwilling to release my renewed fear of him even in sleep; I'd been hoping it was Remus, an omen of his return after a full month of unexplained absence, but I think in actuality it was Kingsley. Or maybe it was just a dream.

It was a knock that afternoon—one single swift tap—that announced his presence. I was just a few years away from my uncle's bite in Greyback's timeline and the proximity had me on edge. The records of his attacks were more difficult to find the further back I went, and he was not always even identified by name in the documents; I frequently had to hazard guesses as to whether or not he was the aggressor based on the description of the bite marks. I was reading extensively about the abuse and torment of children, which was difficult to stomach, and had to take breaks periodically for the sake of mental and emotional stamina—though these were usually forced only when my hands started shaking, a classic sign that whatever was happening was too much.

I caught a surprisingly worried expression from Margaret out of the corner of my eye when I jumped at Kingsley's knock. We both turned in our chairs to face the open office door. He was just standing there, the top of his bald head almost grazing the doorframe, dressed in Muggle garb and looking serious.

"Miss McClane." He nodded his greeting first at me, then in Margaret's direction as well. "I need to speak with you about Remus Lupin."

I bristled. It was not the first time I'd been asked of Remus' whereabouts in the last few weeks, and being without an answer again was painful. A reminder that I was just as clueless as the rest of them. I hated dwelling on it.

"He's left the flat he'd been staying in at the end of the year," I said abruptly, glossing over the eviction. Remus wouldn't want anyone to know; it would embarrass him. "We've been out of touch since."

Kingsley didn't move. "Miss McClane… He told us months ago that he'd chosen to continue working with you." He paused, his eyes darting again to Margaret and then back to me. "We don't… _approve_ of the situation, but we understand it. We assumed, though, that you'd still… cooperate, should the worst-case scenario arise."

My mouth went dry. "What worst case?"

"No one has seen or heard from Lupin in a month." Kingsley cleared his throat. "I need you to tell me where he is."

"I don't _know_ where he is," I said angrily. "I thought he was doing something for _you_ people. A mission."

"Of course not," Kingsley said quickly. "He hasn't been on one in weeks." He cocked his head, his eyes moving very fast, as if the expression on my face were something to read and decipher. "Miss McClane, we are sympathetic to your cause, but I'm not sure you fully comprehend what's at stake here." He had finally fully entered the office. "I'm going to ask you again where Lupin is."

My thoughts accelerated wildly. What, did they think I was hiding him? That I'd kidnapped and trapped him into working for me?

"Please," I said, changing my tone, trying to appeal to some other part of him. "I haven't seen him. I don't know where he is."

Kingsley sighed deeply, looking, to his credit, somewhat apologetic about the whole thing. "I'm sorry, Miss McClane, but I'll have to ask you to come with me to the auror's department. If you aren't willing to tell me what you know, we'll have to perform a Forced Legilimency—"

"You've got no bloody grounds!" I jumped for a second time; Margaret was on her feet, stalking around her desk to stand before Kingsley, almost a whole foot shorter but wildly defiant to make up the difference. The auror looked as shocked as I felt. "She's told you she doesn't know anything, and he hasn't been around here, either. If your friend's gone missing, open an official investigation and go about finding him the legal way." Her eyes narrowed to slits, almost catlike. "But your scare tactics are _not_ welcome here."

Kingsley took a step back, then another, until he was positioned in the doorway, where he'd started, and bowed his head.

"You're right," he said. "That was out of line. I'm sorry. We're… worried about him." He paused, guiltily; nobody spoke for a moment. Margaret had not moved; her tall black boots seemed cemented to the floor.

"I trust you'll pass along anything you hear," he said. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you both. Thank you for your time."

We listened to his footsteps fade out down the long hall until we couldn't hear anything any longer; a strange silence fell over the room. I looked down at my desk in a daze, unable to think of anything to say. Remus was now conclusively _not_ on any authorized mission for the Order. He was officially missing. And Margaret… had defended me?

I looked up to see her eyes already on me, strangely like a mother's observation of a sick child. Upon the meeting of our eyes she re-assembled her features into something cooler and more haughty—in other words, the usual—before returning to her desk, where she appeared to be color-coding a drawer full of nail polish.

"He's all right, you know," she said, somewhat brusquely as she began to stack the small bottles back into her drawer. Red, then orange.

"Who?" I asked, though I knew.

She looked back up at me, her hand hovering over a sparkling gold.

"Lupin," she said, in a different voice. "He's okay."

And then she went right back to the drawer, leaving me even more confused than I was before.

* * *

"We should play a game."

The words slipped out of me before I could fully process their childishness. We were nearing the end of my seventh year and it was now April, getting warmer, the snow fading to memory. Remus and I were sprawled out on a section of springy new grass, not yet wet with morning dew, near the Whomping Willow. He was lying on his back across from me, unusually carefree—it was a new moon that night, the absolute farthest he could be from transformation—pulling the soft seeds loose from a dandelion and blowing each one away on its own, like an eyelash. At my suggestion he tilted his head up and back onto its crown, so he was looking at me upside down as I lay on my stomach. An uncharacteristic grin spread across his face: light-hearted, even playful.

"What game?" came the inevitable question. He gazed expectantly, his hair falling away from his forehead to meet the grass, and I was struck by how young he looked at that moment. Something in his eyes.

"Well…" I said slowly, having lost my nerve a bit, "There's this game we used to play in the dorm sometimes, in first and second year. It's a bit silly…"

"What is it?" He hadn't yet looked away, his unbroken scrutiny always equal parts thrilling and unnerving when you were its subject.

"If I Had a Time Turner," I admitted. A foolish game, perhaps—a child's thought experiment. The participants simply took turns imagining different outlandish scenarios of time travel. When I played in the past I'd imagined myself, at different points, as the founder of a fifth Hogwarts house, the first female Minister of Magic, and, for good measure, the Queen of England.

He laughed. "Of course! I used to play that as a child myself, with my father." He returned to his work on the dandelion, though the smile still remained. "Well, go on then. If you had a time turner…"

"If I had a time turner, I'd go all the way back to the founding of Hogwarts," I said resolutely, "and be the first person in history to be sorted." All of the time turner's usual limitations, of course, did not exist in the reality of the game.

"If I had a time turner…" Remus mused, rolling the flower's rubbery green stem between his fingers. "I'd make sure Nearly Headless Nick _actually_ got beheaded. Think how much happier he'd be now."

It was my turn to laugh. "If _I_ had a time turner, I'd stop You-Know-Who."

"Then _I'd_ go back further, and stop Grindelwald."

We laughed at the contrast of our own weakness, the comfort in our relative inconsequentiality. It felt safe to lie here and imagine these impossibilities. Just the ability to go back was, we knew, no real guarantee of success. You'd still only have the powers you had now. You'd still be you. Just in another time.

"If I had a time turner," Remus began after a moment, "I'd save myself the night that Greyback bit me. Hide myself away, so he'd never find me."

We felt the shift. These weren't outlandish hypotheticals anymore, they were something else.

"I'd keep my mum and dad together," I offered. Though that one didn't seem to be a matter of time at all.

Remus looked back down at the flower, half-picked. "I'd save my mum from dying. I'd find a way to cure her." He paused for a long time; I was afraid to speak. "My… my friends. From school. I'd protect them, too. I'd be their secret-keeper."

My heart softened. "If I had a time turner, I'd go back to when you were five and be your friend."

He gazed over at me. "Can I go forward?"

"What?"

"In time."

I shrugged. "Sure."

"All right." He hadn't yet looked away. "If I had a time turner, I'd go forward, see how well everything turns out for you. And then I'd come back and tell you about it." The grin on his face widened. "'Everything goes all right for you, Cora. You don't need to be afraid.'"

I picked at the grass around us; a gentle breeze drifted through the blades. "You'd do that?"

He laughed gently and turned over onto his stomach, too, so that our faces were very close. "What if I told you I already have?" He cocked his head, utterly unlike himself. The most at ease I'd ever seen him. "Then you'd have to believe me. I know your future."

I tossed the little scraps of grass I'd been shredding right at him. "Bollocks."

He just continued to laugh, little flecks of green falling around him like rain. "Go on, then—prove I haven't!"

* * *

Kingsley's visit only further spurred the fervor of my solo Greyback investigation, though at this point I was arguably employing the work as a defense mechanism. Not only was I profoundly unsettled by the encounter itself—his intrusion and Margaret's uncharacteristic defense alike—it brought up the fact I'd been trying so steadily to ignore: Remus was missing. Gone. If I didn't know where he was and the Order was equally clueless… but I couldn't let myself finish the thought, even in the private confines of my own mind. If Margaret said he was all right, then I believed her. Let Kingsley open an investigation if he wanted, but Remus clearly did not want to be found.

At some point I realized it'd been several weeks since I'd seen or spoken to Will. As I reluctantly pulled myself from my desk to go visit him, however, Margaret stopped me, informing me pointedly that it wasn't worth the trip to the top floor.

"Trust me," she said. For once she was actually making herself useful, giving the office a much-needed cleaning, but she used the charmed feather duster to block my exit when I tried to leave.

"It's not going well in the lab," she sighed, flicking her wand. The feather duster flew back up into the top corner of the room and began to brush years of buildup off the faded molding. "He's disappointed."

So I ran out of reasons to leave the office. Dad had even recently sent a memo confirming that he'd scheduled the Wizengamot assembly for Remus and I, thanks to the apparent success of the committee meeting in December. He'd set a date for after the grant gala—the last week of March. I had exactly a month to prepare, and it was looking more and more as if I'd be presenting our case alone.

When I wasn't working the Greyback timeline I was delving more deeply into the early-1900s era during which all prejudiced laws had been repealed and, however briefly, the wolves had been reclassified solely as Beings. Margaret, again in keeping with the bizarre new streak of helpfulness I'd chosen not to question, had begun bringing me books and records from the library to assist this thread of research. Whenever I'd exhausted her latest offerings—usually late at night, long after she'd gone home for the evening—I'd switch over to Greyback, my map, the timeline.

I forgot to take breaks. I forgot to eat. I began sleeping on a dusty old cot in the interview room. It felt unending. It seemed as if I would never conclusively know the truth, and the idea very nearly killed me.

But then, on the very last day of February, I cracked it. I stumbled across a report that had been misfiled decades prior, by someone who'd held my post long before I was even born. My hands began to shake as I scanned it. I'd begun to doubt whether I could ever know for sure that my uncle's attacker was Greyback—no report had been filed with the registry on Orpheus' account, of course, because Mum was the only one who'd ever known. The rest of the world had been told he died in an unfortunate hunting accident. My only hope had been that I might find record of Greyback near my grandparents' home on the night of that same full moon. And now—

With trembling hands I held the old parchment closer, marked with the date of Orpheus' death. Maybe I'd sensed it all along, maybe this was what I'd been moving toward the whole time.

VICTIM: LUPIN, REMUS J.

ASSAILANT: GREYBACK, FENRIR X.

Greyback had taken two victims that night. Remus' family had lived just a town over from my grandparents. Here it was, at last: irrevocable confirmation that Orpheus and Remus had been bitten by the same wolf.

There was nothing left to do but tell my mother.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Thanks to new followers, favorites, and reviewer LoveFiction2019!

* * *

" _No. After that night I never saw them again. Our two sons… she took them while I slept. I woke up to the bedsheets stained with blood—from the bite—and an empty home. I suppose I'm lucky, though. She could have just killed me and stayed."_

— _Subject 81_

* * *

After the discovery I slept for twelve interrupted hours. Margaret found me midmorning upon arriving at the office, at which point I was awoken by a loud "Oh, for the _love_ of Merlin," followed by a few well-chosen expletives and retreating footsteps. I sat up on the bare cot in the darkened interview room, blinking blearily, experiencing all of the sensations of a hangover and for the first time in a month having the thought that I should be sleeping more.

By the time I was standing up and beginning to collect the files scattered around me she had returned with a hot clay mug, filled almost to the brim with coffee. She held it out to me without a word. I set the folders down and allowed myself this basic human pleasure. I was beginning to return to myself; I could feel logic and priority seeping back into my worn-out brain as I sipped. I would go and tell my mother, I decided, and then I would begin the search for Remus. I would not go before the Wizengamot without him. It was too important.

"You found what you were looking for, didn't you?" Margaret asked, already seated at her desk, without looking up. It was the kind of question that didn't really need a response.

* * *

I gave no advance notice when I apparated outside of Mum's house the next morning. I sent no owl, no patronus, I told no one I was going. Mum always loved spontaneity, lived it, too—unplanned trips into London, to the country, new boyfriends, nights I woke and she was gone—everything always a surprise. Today, I decided, would be no exception.

I slipped into the lobby like any other guest, counting up the keys hanging behind the table where Mum always checked people in. Silver, shiny—only one missing. A slow day, then. Better for my purposes.

I made my way further into the house, down the long hall, past the parlor and the dining room and the entrance to the kitchen, calling for her as I went. How the empty rooms echoed. How different it felt from the bustling, happy mecca of my youth. Everything grayer and so much quieter now.

She appeared at the bottom of the grand, winding staircase. She looked, as usual, utterly beautiful: her thick, dark hair cascading over her shoulders, her dressing grown a luscious deep scarlet. She did not appear surprised to see me. She looked like she had been expecting me to come.

We stared at each other from a distance for a long, strange moment, and then she held out her arms suddenly, a wide smile bursting across her face, as if she were an actress remembering her role.

"Cora, darling, I haven't seen you since Christmas! Won't you come here and kiss me?"

I stayed where I was. I couldn't let her suck me back in. I thought desperately of Leonard, how she'd chosen to be with him all this time. I had to stay focused. Say what I came to say.

"I just wanted to tell you something I found out at work, Mum," I said carefully. "I thought it might bring you closure." I took the folded-up bit of parchment from my pocket, the one that gave Remus' name, Greyback's, the right location, the date she'd recognize.

"I know who attacked Orpheus, Mum. I know the name of the werewolf who did it."

She'd still been holding out her arms, like a statue, but at this she lowered them abruptly, her expression changing to something darker, defensive. "What—I didn't—"

"His name," I continued, my voice trembling, "is Fenrir Greyback. And you should know that the Department of Magical Law Enforcement has been after him for a while; I think they'll find—"

"Do you think I care what its _name_ was?" she spat, pulling her robes closer around herself in a red whirl. "You think that matters to me at all?" She threw a look of pure disdain my way, briefly. "Nothing will change the fact that Orpheus is dead."

My mouth opened and closed of its own accord. "I just thought…"

"I shouldn't need to explain this to you, Cora," she began, her voice jarringly calmer and matter-of-fact. "But from the moment that _thing_ bit him, O wasn't my brother anymore. So I did what needed to be done."

Something shifted inside of me, clicked into place. A horrible realization, mirroring the feeling I'd had at Christmas.

"Do you mean…" I swallowed. "You mean he didn't really ask you to kill him? You lied to me?" I clung fleetingly to what I remembered of her confession. She'd said Orpheus had cried. Begged her to put him out of his misery right then and there, to save him from a lifetime of it. And so she had, at 18, per his request. She'd said.

There was still a hall's length between us, but I'd never felt so far. She pulled her robes tighter about herself and folded her arms. She looked beautiful. Young.

"It's like I said, Cora." She responded evenly. "I did what needed to be done."

A creak on the top step. I jumped, but Mum turned and looked up, almost casually, like we were in the middle of any old conversation. All I could see was a pair of unfamiliar shoes—the sole guest of the house, the missing key. A man murmured something about bedsheets and blankets, to which Mum smiled that bright and beautiful smile of my youth, which I missed so much, and hurried up the stairs to help him, the lace hem of her nightgown brushing each step as she moved. She had not said another word to me.

I stood there in the pure, unbroken silence of that moment. The house was so quiet that I could hear everything occurring beyond its walls—city dump-trucks and cheerful passersby and a young girl's laughter like a bell, clear and full of joy. I wished so deeply that I could be out there, instead of here. To be any of those people. Because I understood now my mother had not killed her brother to save him. She had killed him because she saw him as dirty. Tainted. Something else.

She had killed him for herself.

* * *

I'm not sure how long I stood there numbly considering this, turning a new conclusion over in my mind now that it was the truth. I loved someone that my mother, given the opportunity, would have murdered. I thought of Remus, bitten that same night, by the same wolf: his small body, the scar that never healed. I was so wrapped up in the image that I didn't even notice the front door creak open. The man who slipped inside.

"Cor _ahhh!_ " he exclaimed, dragging out the last syllable, as he always had, into a kind of breathy sigh. I spun to see Leonard standing there, as I knew he would be, in a royal blue suit and spotless leather shoes. Of course she hadn't left him. Exactly as I'd seen him for the last two months, haunting my waking hours—except I knew, this time, that he was real. He locked the door with a swift click, just like my boggart. Just like my memory.

"Sweetheart, it's been _years_. You look… even more beautiful." He wasn't walking a straight line toward me, I noticed, but instead curving from one side of the hall to the other as he moved, making me shift my gaze to follow him. Subtle little acts of control.

I was in no mood for this. "Stay away from me, Leonard," I tried to say in a strong, even voice, like my mother's. It came out as a croak. A whisper.

"I knew you'd come back," he said, shaking his head, smiling easily, though I knew he'd heard me. My blood was pounding so loudly in my ears I could barely hear the creaking of the ancient wooden floor. He had almost reached me. And of course I'd memorized this path the first time he walked it in the upstairs bedroom that summer. And of course I'd played it out a thousand times in my head, reliving the trauma of his closeness, his hunger, his desire. His fingers closed around my wrist in present tense.

But this time, I was ready. I would not run.

I ripped my wand from my pocket. " _Stupefy!_ " He fell back from the force of the spell, staring at me in shock. I knew my mother had never told him she was a witch. Surprise was in my favor.

Let him fear me.

" _Wingardium Leviosa!_ " I levitated objects next, little trinkets set around us on coffee tables and counters. I hurled them through the air with a strength I didn't know I had. Things my mother loved: a glass candelabra, a picture frame, a small figurine of a woman with wings. Some of them missed him and shattered. An ocean of glass shards grew between us. But some hit their mark, leaving red welts in their wake, webbed little cuts, bruises beneath his clothes.

We crunched glass as we walked: him backing away and me moving faster, closing the distance between us rapidly, so we had almost reached the door he himself had locked. I heard my mother's footsteps, a pounding beat across the ceiling above us. I was still hurling objects. More shattering. I was barely conscious of my own movements. I felt possessed.

Leonard's back hit the door. He scrabbled for the key in his pocket but could not hold onto it due to the shaking of his hands: it fell to the floor with a dull metallic clatter and so he stood quivering before me, holding both of his hands out. I heard the stairs creak behind me but I was barely aware of them, so enraptured was I with the idea of all the things I could do to destroy the source of my fear.

"You're a _witch_ ," he gasped.

I smiled grimly. "And my mother's daughter."

I raised my wand.

" _Petrificus Totalus_ ," I whispered, and he collapsed there, frozen, his hand still grazing the edge of the door through which he could have escaped. I towered over him. There was a sudden, violent surge of relief. At last he could not touch me. I was safe.

Then a sharp sudden rhythm of pointy heels clicking down the spiral staircase at a fast clip. My mother stalked past without looking at me, and bent over Leonard's prostrate body. This was when I processed the ring on her finger for the first time. They were engaged.

"I've alerted the Improper Use of Magic Office," she said in a rigid tone. She still had not looked at me.

My hands did not shake. I found, quite suddenly, that I was no longer afraid.

"I'm not sorry for what I did," I told the back of her head. She was fumbling for her wand in the pocket of her robe. "I just want you to know, Mum. That you were wrong." I cleared my throat. "You could kill evil when you thought you saw it in your brother's eyes, but you let a man like this live in our house. _Ours_."

That got her. She looked at me. I saw her face was tear-streaked, her hand pressed to Leonard's chest.

"I've only ever done what I thought I had to," she whispered.

Then there were two very sudden pops, and a pair of aurors were standing in our foyer.

* * *

The aurors made quick work of the scene. We fell neatly into categories: I was the aggressor, Leonard the victim, and my mother an innocent bystander. She sat off to one side as they zipped around the room, restraining me, restoring the broken objects, reviving and obliviating Leonard, unlocking the door. It happened in a matter of seconds. One of them apparated away with me. The last thing I saw before we left was the second auror bent over my mother, tenderly wiping tears from her face, already a little bit in love with her. My mother did not look at me. She did not say _I'm sorry_ , or _I love you_ , or _goodbye_. I saw her eyes dart to Leonard and stay there.

They brought me to the aurors' department with my hands behind my back. They locked me in a room with no windows and sat me down and asked me questions. They asked if I'd meant to kill the Muggle they'd found at the crime scene. They asked if I'd ever used an Unforgivable Curse in my lifetime. They asked if my job made me angry, if I had any criminal associates, if I thought non-magical beings deserved to die.

I did not answer their questions. Instead, I asked for my father.

They left me alone in the room without windows. I had no idea what time it was or where the sun was in the sky, or how many minutes had passed since Leonard grabbed my wrist and I stunned him. I knew the aurors wanted me to feel guilty for what I'd done. But I would have done it again—a hundred times, a thousand. Standing over Leonard's frozen body was the strongest I'd ever felt.

There was nothing in the room except a cold metal chair and a metal table to match. I spent hours sitting in that chair, waiting to see a face I recognized. Later I would learn they'd kept me in that room for half a day, alone with my thoughts, to see if the silence would break me. At some point I put my head down on the table—it was cool against my cheek, calming—and closed my eyes. At some point Remus came in, put his fingers under my chin, lifted my face and kissed my forehead, again, like he had the very last time I'd seen him. I woke up before I could settle too comfortably into the idea that the moment was real. I'd dreamed him back to me.

After a beat I realized the thing that had woken me was my father's voice.

"No, tell me _your_ name!" I heard him shouting in the hall outside. "I look forward to informing your superior of the spectacular mishandling of my daughter's case. You'll be lucky if a Muggle hires you to shine his shoes after I'm done here. Locked in interrogation for twelve hours… Let me _see_ her!"

A door appeared quite suddenly in the brick wall and my father entered through it, slamming it behind him with an unrecognizable anger. His eyes, normally a soft, light lavender, were a blazing violet. He crossed the room quickly and sat in a chair he magicked beside mine, the anger on his face melting to worry. I blinked groggily.

"They said there was some kind of incident at your mother's," he began hurriedly. "I thought—"

My eyes focused in on the gold locket I recognized from that night at Fiona's, swinging wildly from his neck. I steadied myself with its movement, like a metronome.

"I'm okay, Dad."

He slowed, allowed himself one deep breath. "What _happened?_ "

"That boyfriend of hers. Leonard. I defended myself." Hadn't I? It was all less and less clear the more time that passed… had I been in immediate danger? Had my actions been justified? "I don't know. I was defending myself," I said again. "I gave them my statement."

"That goddamn woman… her _boyfriends_ ," my father muttered. "How did they find out you'd done magic at all?"

"She called them." I tried to swallow down the lump in my throat. It was a betrayal that hadn't yet fully sunk in. And I could tell he hadn't been expecting this either, my father, not from the woman he'd once loved. The idea that she'd turn on their daughter. _Her_ daughter. He looked down at the table for a moment, saw his own blank eyes reflecting back.

"Right, well…" He shook his head vigorously, as if to clear her from his mind. "There'll be a trial, Cora, like there usually is when one of us uses combative magic on a Muggle. In a few days. But they're letting you go now; they've had no grounds to hold you this long to begin with—" He said this last bit at an elevated volume, as if he hoped they could hear him— "and I'll be there with you at the hearing, of course. But you were defending yourself. Of course you were. This man—this predator—" he shook his head again. I knew he was thinking of my mum. "They won't charge you. Not in a case of self-defense." He reached up tentatively and let a hand rest on my shoulder. I let it be comforting.

"Are you—are you sure?"

I thought of all that could happen. They could take my job. My wand. Everything that mattered.

"Of course, Cora." But the expression in his eyes betrayed him.

* * *

My father was right about one thing: the aurors did release me, though only after impressing on me the severity of punishment for those who miss their scheduled court date. Dad asked if I wanted him to escort me home, but at that moment nothing sounded worse to me than my father and I silent together in my tiny studio, cramped and claustrophobic. I shook my head gently. We were standing outside the Ministry's entrance at this point and the sun was on its way up; I could see streaks of light fanning out from behind London's outline, the tall buildings that stretched upwards all around us. Dad stepped back, offered a small, worn-out smile, and disapparated. After another beat, so did I.

But I didn't head back to my flat. Not immediately. I tried to, but something else happened, something wrong; my body began to blink in and out of all the places I'd once called home.

I appeared and disappeared very quickly in the center of the garden at Mum's boarding house, where I'd been only a day before. Disoriented, I reached out to stroke the velvety petals of one of her prized red roses before disappearing again.

I appeared in a corner of King's Cross Station, walked automatically past hundreds of Muggles going about their daily commute to trace the unyielding brick barrier that separated me from the only way to get to my old school, to Hogwarts: the place that had, in my life, felt most like home.

I appeared on the porch of my father's house, the sun still rising steadily in the distance, the grass sprawling out before me: fresh, vibrant, alive.

And I appeared in the middle of the forest, the werewolves' forest, and realized in all of the chaos I couldn't remember last night's moon phase.

"Where _are_ you, Remus?" I whispered aloud. "Where have you gone?"


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: As always, thanks to new faves/follows and reviewer LoveFiction2019!

* * *

" _And of course you don't want anyone with you. Watching you change. It's a private act. Shameful. At least in my case, I've only ever been alone when it starts. I prefer it that way."_

— _Subject 95_

* * *

I asked him, once, if I could watch him transform.

We normally didn't see each other at all on full-moon days; Remus didn't teach, took his meals alone and kept to his quarters, a self-imposed isolation. I came to him that day without a clear idea of what I wanted, or what I was even asking. I only knew that I wanted to help.

"You're on wolfsbane; you can't hurt me anyway," I continued as he paced back and forth restlessly. We were in the classroom, standing among rows of vacant desks.

"Why would you ever think I'd let you see that?" The way he said _that_ , as if talking about something entirely separate from himself rather than the thing he turned into. Something different, something dirty.

I bit my lip, fiddled with the hem of my robe. I was terrified, of course, but part of me had always believed that bearing witness to others' pain would lessen it somehow. That if someone acknowledged your trauma, you wouldn't carry it alone any longer. The burden could be shared.

But I didn't have the words for any of this yet. Instead, I stuttered out something incoherent about loneliness. He shook his head and guided me from the room with a hand on my shoulder. He thought a decision had been made.

What is difficult to admit is the fact of my return. That ten minutes to midnight I crept back down the halls that led to his quarters, whispered a spell to unlock the classroom entrance, and silently crossed the wooden floor until I was right outside the door to his office. I pressed my body against it: my ear, my cheek, my hands. I listened.

That night for the first time I heard the desperate cries of pain that accompany a lycanthropic transformation. I heard the bones snap, the skin tear, his muted whimpers and his howls. It took longer than I had imagined; I only knew that it was over when the cries ceased and all that remained was the sound of his exhausted panting and a low, singular moan. I knew then that I should not have come. That the transformation was inherently private, and I'd had no right to witness it, even with this degree of distance.

I slid down the length of the door to a seated position, my back pressed hard against the wood. I would never forget those sounds.

* * *

One minute I was standing alone in the forest and the next I was enveloped in his arms, my face pressed into his chest, the scent so familiar that I didn't even have to open my eyes to know it was him, it was _him_ , he'd come back. He'd reappeared. Remus.

"Cora."

His voice cracked from disuse, or something else. My body felt rigid and electric as we embraced. I wanted to open my eyes to rememorize him and his face and hands and the shape of his mouth, but I also knew when I did that it would mark the end of this moment, and I would have to remember why I was here and ask him where he'd been and together we would have to confront everything that had gone wrong.

I did not want to question anything.

I held on as long as I could.

Eventually, gently, with an air of apology, he broke apart from me and I saw him clearly for the first time in months. His appearance was a testament to the time that had passed: his hair at least an inch longer and unkempt, matted; a beard I'd never seen before masked the lower part of his face, would have made him much harder to spot in a crowd. I'm not sure I would have recognized him on the street, and it struck me that maybe we _had_ passed each other, that I had walked right by him in the city and not seen him at all. I didn't recognize the clothes he was wearing, either: the robes were dirty and the hems were ripped, strings unraveling from the torn edges. For a moment all I could do was look, aghast at how much he'd changed, how quickly.

It struck me then, the lengths he must have gone to in order to "represent" his kind. The weight of the obligation. The money spent on a certain kind of clothing that could have been spent on food, on rent. The maintenance of appearance and the exhaustion that came with it. In the interim of our time apart he had clearly stopped trying. And something about his stance, the way he couldn't hold my gaze—he seemed ashamed of it.

"How did you know…" I finally asked.

"They have an auror keeping an eye on you," he said quietly. "Kingsley tracked me down a few days ago. He thought the events of yesterday night might be the thing to draw me back out. He was right." He cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Cora. I should have been there."

"No," I said abruptly. He met my eyes, startled. "It's my fault you left." Dull shock registered as I wiped tears from my face, tears I'd forgotten about. "The eviction—I was so wrapped up in my own—"

He shook his head and tried a smile. "I never liked the place anyway," he said. "Really, the landlord finding out about me just gave me an easy out of the lease."

I looked at him, wide-eyed and guilty. "But where've you been sleeping?" I whispered. "It's been weeks; no one knew where you were—"

"Home can be many places, if you're flexible with definition. But Cora…" Remus paused. "Kingsley told me… well, he told me what happened. With your mother." His voice dropped and I knew he was remembering, everything I'd said and everything that had gone unspoken. "I'm just sorry you were alone last night. I… I came back because I didn't want you to have to do the rest by yourself. The hearing. Everything."

My heart was pounding, though from relief or anticipation or something else I couldn't discern. I took advantage of the moment and leaned back into him without saying a word. I didn't care about the dirt smudged into his fingers in kaleidoscopic patches, or press of his ribs through his skin; I ignored the gentle tremors that ran through his arms as he held me, and just let myself be held.

The night of his return wasn't a solution, not one that would last, but it was a balm. Maybe in a week I'd be in Azkaban, but at least I'd could take with me the knowledge that he'd come back to me first. That I hadn't been abandoned.

"You won't leave again?" I could picture past exits so clearly in my mind's eye; leaving the classroom, leaving his office, leaving the party—always on the verge of departure. I didn't want the ease of his disappearance to be true anymore. I wanted something else.

"I won't leave," he promised, and I believed him.

* * *

My father and Kingsley Shacklebolt did the best they could to keep the incident out of the papers, but the Prophet still printed a condemning headline the day before my hearing:

MINISTRY EMPLOYEE UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR MUGGLE ATTACK

A short list of things that didn't matter to Prophet reporters: the issue of self-defense, Leonard's extensive history of assault and abuse, the fact that he was currently under police investigation for a string of Muggle murders. In fact, had we not been living in the wake of Voldemort's return, I'm sure my case's coverage would only have been more libelous, closer to the front page. Remus told me to ignore it, but I couldn't help glancing past the headline the morning of the hearing, scanning its contents: victim and villain. I wondered if this was how my mother thought of me now. The article only said she could not be reached for comment.

Remus met me for breakfast the morning of my court date. We had previously agreed to meet at a cafe a block from the Ministry entrance and then walk over together—he and my father would both be in attendance, alternately for testimony and general moral support. But once there I found I could not eat. I wondered whether anyone on the Council had read the Prophet article. It seemed more and more that yes, I had been brave, but it had cost me. So now, once again, I was terrified.

"Cora." Remus pushed a chocolate-chip muffin across the table. He'd assured me profusely that Kingsley had insisted he stay at Grimmauld Place since his return. I'd gathered, mostly through inference and implication, that he'd been sleeping on the streets and in the forest before then. That after the eviction he'd felt hopeless, overwhelmed, believed any activist effort he attached himself to would only suffer from his association. It broke my heart that he couldn't see how much he mattered, the difference he had made. But fear tightened my throat. I didn't have the words to convey this to him.

"Cora," he said again. When I didn't respond he leaned forward, took my chin in his hand. "Hey."

It was close to 8 a.m. and the coffeeshop was crowded, teeming with bodies in need of sustenance, in need of community, in need of closeness to bodies like their own. As many as thirty different conversations were occurring around our small table, the two metal chairs: conversations about the weather, about relationships, about school, about work, about love, conflict, life, death, peace—but when he traced my jawline, looked into my eyes and said my name I ceased to hear any of them. Everything around us went slow and silent. I just looked back at him. I softened. It was the first moment of calm I'd felt in weeks.

"It'll be fine," he said resolutely, with the air of someone who has seen the future and knows it, and although Remus had not a drop of Seer's blood in his veins, had never seen a thing in a crystal ball or a placid puddle of water and only ever his own reflection in a mirror, I believed him. I believed him completely.

"Now," he said with a tone of authority. The world fell back into speed around us. "Eat your muffin." A smile quirked the edges of his lips. "Before I do."

* * *

Once, when I was much younger, my mother had a hearing much like this one. She'd been charged with the use of magic in front of a Muggle. Unable to arrange childcare, she brought me along and they allowed me, at seven or eight, to sit in the stands, my head barely clearing the wooden ledge that separated my mother and I. I remember her face wet with tears, I remember her body as an island, alone on that chair as she spoke of her love for this man, how she had used her magic to save him—another man who would be gone in a matter of months. I remember gazing out at her from the pews and feeling forgotten, invisible, as she spoke of him. I craved a love that deep, a love that broke laws. To be loved like that. Mum got off paying a small fine; at the time the Council believed her fervent testimony.

I wondered, as I took her seat years later, if the same would happen to me.

A handful of men observed me as I gazed back at them: the ones who would decide my future. The two aurors who had been at the scene immediately after I hurt Leonard were sitting nearby. Dad and Remus were in chairs behind my own. Dad reached forward and squeezed my shoulder during opening remarks. I felt a rush of fear and a rush of gratefulness, wrapped up inextricably in each other.

The crimes I'd been accused of were detailed next. Both aurors had their turn to speak. The one who'd gazed so affectionately at my mother seemed to have already convicted me in his mind, a self-satisfied smirk cutting his face as he called me things like aggressor, like instigator. The word _seduction_ was used. My stomach curdled at the sound of it in this man's mouth, the idea that anyone would hear him and believe it. This fantasy that Leonard had rebuffed my advances, and I'd grown angry and cursed him. A disgusting twist of events that several members of the committee actually seemed to be considering.

"And where is the girl's mother?" one of them asked in the midst of all this.

"We asked her to come, sir, but she won't leave the Muggle's side," the auror responded. "Our memory charm had a stronger effect than expected; he's forgotten Cora McClane." My heart almost stopped. What? No one had told me this. "He's forgotten everything about her—that she exists at all. But, sir, he's forgotten Ms. Sweeney as well." My mother. He'd forgotten her too. "She's been with him all this time, sir. Trying to remind him of what they have."

A great relief continued to coast through me. We broke for a fifteen-minute recess and I found myself unable to move from the chair, as if some great pressure had at last released every muscle in my body at once. Leonard had _forgotten_ me; I'd been wiped from his mind. Whatever happened to me, next—with the trial, with my life, anything—he would never be a part of it again.

"I can't believe your mother didn't come," Dad said as he approached my chair. His hair and robes were immaculate, as always, but he was speaking through gritted teeth. And even in the midst of everything that was going on, I could tell there was still a part of my father that said this not only out of concern for me, but for one other reason. This vague sentiment he couldn't shake: he cared for her still.

"He's really forgotten me?" I croaked. Remus had walked up behind my father and now moved closer as I asked this, a comforting presence in the middle of that wide, empty floor.

"Yes, Cora. They sent a healer to confirm—he has no idea who you are."

I barely paid attention to the rest of the hearing, my relief was so extreme and so great. Dad testified to my defense that I had not been offered representation upon booking. That I had been held beyond the legal limit. He finished by looking defiantly up at the council and stating that we should not allow war to become an excuse for violation of constituents' rights. That this had been a clear and simple case of self-defense from the beginning and we were all wasting time pretending to deliberate. I felt a rush of gratitude for my father as he turned back to me and nodded comfortingly.

"Those in favor of clearing the accused of her violation, on the basis of self-defense?" called a gruff wizard seated at the center of the long table. They all quietly raised their hands, mostly at the same time. I breathed a long, deep sigh.

Just like that, it was over.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Thank you, drwatsonn and LoveFiction2019, for your reviews!

* * *

" _Never let your guard down. Even on a new moon."_

— _Subject 43_

* * *

What came next I can only call a reprieve. Perhaps his absence had allowed him the time to consider what was truly important to him; it seemed he'd come to new and different conclusions. He began to allow himself happiness.

In the days leading up to the grant gala he became somebody new, or old, maybe, or just different: the boy I'd had only the briefest chance to know on the grounds that night by the Whomping Willow. We began to spend long, lingering moments on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place, whispering gently, laughing, neither of us ever quite wanting to say goodbye again. Sometimes we'd stand there for an hour, my feet slowly going numb in the February chill. There was a thrill to the magic of his new home, how we could stand on the top step and see the entire square, yet not be seen ourselves. Our conversations and our soft touches, every moment of those interactions masked from Muggle view—from anyone's. Our secret. He'd run his fingers down the length of my arm, inciting gooseflesh that had nothing to do with the weather. Once he reached inside my cloak to grip my waist and pull me to him, so every part of us was touching. I could feel his shifting warmth through his coat, his clothes. With my ear to his chest I could feel his heart pounding; I knew he was excited, and I knew he was also afraid.

But he had to be the one to initiate; if I did and he rejected me, it would be the end of whatever it was we had. Personal and professional. And I would rather have had these long, yearning, restless, infuriating talks on the porch of Grimmauld Place than be left with nothing at all.

* * *

The day of the gala my father enlisted Remus and I in decoration efforts. Xavier, too, had been treating me differently in the wake of the Leonard incident: more invitations to his home, more dinners, more memos flapping their way into my office at work. Sometimes, in moments of silence, he'd lean across the table to place a hand on mine and say not a word, his eyes rimmed with tears. It could have been pride. Or the paternal love he was learning. After the trial, seeing his defense of me, I felt open to receive it in a way I hadn't before. We embarked on an unfamiliar and new iteration of family; it felt safe.

Now, watching the two of them hang streamers—Remus and my father—I could almost forget my mother. The choice she'd made, the finality of it, her absence at my trial. And I decided in that moment, watching the two who remained, that I would never see her again. But I would keep her secret. It would be the last thing I ever did for her.

Tonight was a new night. A night of hope.

When the people came they came in droves. It was something of a shock to see so many of them dancing, laughing under this banner of lycanthropy, of all things. My father grinned, in his element; nothing made him happier than facilitating togetherness. I could see his smile from across the room, like a beacon.

The room was so big. I'd been here so many times now but my awe seemed perpetual, that such a huge space could exist under my father's roof—under any roof. The woman onstage hummed and lilted, her voice the deep and resonant thread that carried through the hundred small conversations occurring around me. Something about the moon. The freshly waxed floor shone under the spinning and twirling of all these people who were normally so stern and serious. I could feel something inside me loosening as I watched them, just from taking in the exuberance and beauty of the scene. I smoothed my sharply cut black velvet dress down across my thighs and began to tap the heel of my left foot.

"Catchy, isn't it?" I didn't have to turn to know it was him, standing at my right shoulder so closely that my elbow was touching his chest. He was doing that more and more lately, finding quiet excuses for his skin to graze mine.

I smiled. "How were they?" I asked, in reference to the donors. I'd last spotted him in the center of a cluster of them, a group of very expensively dressed men and women with serious faces and lots of questions. This conference had afforded me an innocent opportunity to watch him: that black suit, clean-shaven again, his hair washed and brushed back but still the length it had been in the forest a week prior, the only hint of wildness remaining. I admired how he balanced the two in his appearance, his demeanor, the way he straddled that line between the civil and the feral. Somehow he seemed more like himself now than he ever had. A brash confidence around him like an aura, which people were drawn to, seduced by.

For this was the newest wrinkle: the women. And there were many here tonight, more than usual: curious women, lustful women, every one of them unique in their beauty. I'd watched them approach him all night. Always the air of surprise when they tapped him on the shoulder, or reached for his hand. He'd blink it away, brush his hair out of his eyes, and decline politely the offers of drink and dance. In fact, he had not danced with anyone yet tonight.

"I don't want to talk about them," he whispered. And suddenly, I was no longer holding the goblet I'd been holding; suddenly, his hand had replaced the feel of the cold, condensing glass, warm as he folded his fingers into mine; suddenly, we were spinning out onto the dance floor.

I was vaguely aware of many eyes on me, the shift in others' gazes as we moved out into the middle of the room. A part of me was embarrassed, but another part of me felt alive, electric, attuned to the constant thrills of his touch every time his fingers reached a new place on my body for the first time: my cheek; my clavicle; the spot between my neck and shoulder; the small of my back, which, in this particular dress, was bare. I imagined others watching the movement of his hands, following his feet. He was, somehow, a rather spectacular dancer, though I had no idea where he would have learned or who his previous partners had been. My nerves and my excitement met on some unfamiliar, pulsating middle ground where everything ended in a question: this was new territory, we had never done this before—not together. He looked at me and did not look away; it was all I could do to meet his gaze, in wonderment, in anticipation. The crowd had parted, strangely, and most were standing around watching the two of us dance, like newlyweds after a ceremony. We were, in an odd way, the guests of honor.

The music continued. The woman with the dark hair sang.

"I've got you," he whispered, so quietly that no one else would have heard, and then he dipped me. So low that the ends of my hair grazed the floor and stayed there: he held me steady. He did not waver. I gazed back at him, at this angle his face framed by the ornate ceiling, trying to suss his gaze: was he performing, still? But he seemed happy, his eyes lit up like stars. He was so close to me. I heard clapping rise around us, a dull roar, like the ocean.

"I've got you," he said again. And then he raised me back to my feet in a single swing.

The applause swelled. I felt eyes on me and was afraid to look at them, so I looked back to him instead. He offered a lopsided smile, a little bit bashful, maybe a little roguish, that new light dancing still in those familiar green eyes. And then all I could do was look. The Remus I'd known at Hogwarts, even the one from last fall would never have done this. It was as if his recent time away had reborn him somehow.

Our hands were clasped loosely together at our sides. We were still close enough, still touching in a way where I could feel his body shaking. From exertion, maybe, the energy it had taken to move across the floor the way we had; or the thrill of being watched, perhaps; or maybe something else entirely.

"I think it's time for that speech, Remus!" came the boom of my father's voice. I jumped in surprise as the crowd shifted to face the stage again. I had not noticed Xavier take the singer's place, but there he was, with his wand held to his throat. His voice carried over to me along with his gaze, and something in his eyes seemed validating, supportive, in a way I didn't think I could be imagining. My heart leapt.

Remus gently released my hands and began to move toward the stage; the crowd parted for him as though he was a celebrity, or a prophet. They went silent as he walked out before them, above them. I moved closer to get a better view. He shared a brief, private smile with my father as they traded places, and then he was all alone onstage.

He closed his eyes, then opened them. He began to speak.

"Thanks, all of you, for coming. I know it'd be cliche to say this night means a great deal to me, but… it _does_ mean a great deal to me." A few chuckles from the audience. "For those of you who have contributed to fundraising for the cure, especially, I cannot offer enough thanks. Cora McClane chose the right man for the job—" he gestured to me, here, and then to Will, who was leaning against the back wall and cheerfully raised his special-delivered energy drink at the sound of his name—"and I believe success is in sight for the first time in history, thanks to your gracious donations." He wet his lips; I knew he was not one for speeches, but we'd agreed it made sense for him, the werewolf, to be the one to speak—especially with the rumors around my hearing still dying down. He brushed the new length of his hair back behind an ear and continued.

"In just a few months we will reach the end of this yearlong experiment, and we look forward to sharing the results with you. I can say that we have high hopes. In the meantime, I thank you for your patience, your acceptance, and your presence." I raised my glass at this and thought he might've looked at me as the hint of a smile crossed his face, though I couldn't be sure. "I have gone a long time in the face of prejudice and hatred, but these last months have given me hope for change. As a werewolf—"

I'll never know for sure what cut him off.

The darkness, or the laughter?

One must have happened before the other, but seconds apart, fusing inextricably the sudden fright of a blackout with the creeping sensation of danger. I could barely see the outline of the person in front of me, so total was the darkness that fell over us. It was impossible to tell where the laughter was coming from: cold, high-pitched, and twisted.

But then, a powerful burst of light shot out from the stage. Scattered gasps spread through the crowd. A handheld ball of flame illuminated the eyes, nose, and sharply pointed teeth of none other than the man I knew to be Fenrir Greyback.

"I'm really rather hurt," he said. His voice was deeper than his laugh but held that same strain of darkness. I could feel the woman beside me begin to shake. "You go to all this trouble to throw a gala for werewolves, but you don't think to invite _me_?"

* * *

Chaos ensued. People ran immediately for the exits, but Greyback's crew had barricaded every door from the outside. We were trapped. It was still pitch-black in the room; I only got a sense of where people were from the sound of their screams. I lit up my wand and charged for the stage. Greyback was still holding the fire, so I could make out Remus' sudden movement as he tore his wand from his pocket and pointed it at Greyback, yelled a spell I couldn't hear above the din. I saw the other man laugh and dodge it easily; they both fell out of view as someone ran right into me and I tumbled back flat onto the floor. I kicked off my heels as I got quickly back up again, trying to avoid being trampled in the chaos, but I couldn't find Remus or Greyback in the crowd. The stage was dark and empty.

It was then that I began to hear the laughter again. Not Greyback's alone, this time, but many voices, younger ones. I knew enough about Greyback's crew from my research to identify the bodies who were skulking the outskirts of the room, giggling and snarling. Sometimes when he bit children, if the circumstances were right, he'd take them away from their families. Teach them to hate humans—Muggle, wizard, it didn't matter. He imbued them with that same hunger for flesh that he'd nurtured in himself over the years. I couldn't see them in the dark, but I knew they'd be young. Excited. Hungry.

I spun, remembering my father next, trying to recall the last place I'd seen him standing. Spells lit the faces of the masses in flashes; I glimpsed wide-open eyes and clenched teeth as I pushed through huddles of party guests. I ran with my wand out, toward the doors next, thinking I'd try my hand at opening one—at least then we could get people out. I was trying to summon the courage that had surged through me that fateful night at my mother's, which now seemed so long ago. I kept my head down as I moved.

This was a mistake.

An arm snaked around my throat. My legs kept moving and my torso caught; I choked and dropped my wand in surprise as the arm tightened. The few people left around me scattered; my stomach dropped. I pushed my elbows back and kicked my legs furiously, trying to hurt whoever had grabbed me.

I had an idea of who it was. I wanted to be wrong.

"I saw you dancing," came that same voice I'd heard on the stage moments prior.

I clawed at the arm around my neck, but Greyback just squeezed me tighter. I couldn't speak; I could barely breathe. His long nails dug into my skin as he leaned forward.

"He likes you, doesn't he?" came Greyback's voice. I felt his lips graze my ear as he shaped each word, the thick hair surrounding them brushing against my lobe. My eyes flew desperately around the room, searching out the small pockets of light.

"He's got the wrong idea about what to do with things you like," he said and then, horribly, I felt something very much like teeth graze my throat: filmy, cold, and sharp. His vise had loosened just enough to let an audible gasp escape me, and his responding laugh was so close to me, my throat, my ear, that I could feel it inside of me.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Greyback."

Remus' wand illuminated his features just a few feet away from us. Behind him I could see someone had managed to get a door open; a sea of people streamed through the exit, letting light in, so I could see now that Greyback's crew had taken a hostage each. Ten of us remained, each locked in the same chokehold by one of the other werewolves, and then there was Remus, alone in the center of it all, holding out his wand.

Greyback cackled with the same uncomfortable resonance. I focused desperately on my neck: I didn't think his teeth had broken skin—yet. I couldn't be sure.

"It's a party for _us_ , Lupin!" he exclaimed. "And you're not going to eat?"

His arm was still tight around me; it was all I could do to watch Remus' next moves, his eyes. If he was afraid, he hid it well. There was blood on his collar—I couldn't tell if it was his, or someone else's. His eyes were unnervingly, impossibly calm.

"Please, Fenrir, we're so _hungry_ ," one of the younger wolves shouted from the edge of the room. A few of the others sounded their agreement, howling and laughing. "We've been waiting—"

"Shut UP!" he screamed. My ears rang. "I told you morons, you don't eat until I do. Good cubs hold their tongues." His grip tightened further; I could not have said a word if I wanted to. My eyes swept over the hostages—at least my father did not seem to be among them. But the wolves were growing impatient.

"This isn't the right path, Greyback," came Remus' voice again. He was inching closer to us, his wand still raised, the other hand up, palm out. "They're trying to help us, you know. They're searching for a cure."

"You think I want to go back to how I was? Any of us?" I felt him throw his other arm out and gesture at the wolves around us: they booed collectively. "I made you _strong_ , Lupin, don't you remember?" he said. "I made you what you are. A gift, I gave you! And you—you'd throw that gift away in a heartbeat." Again, the laugh. But it was even crueler this time.

"What a _waste_ ," he said, and then I felt the teeth return—

more howling—

Remus' resounding "NO!"—

a flash of light—

the hands blasted loose from my neck—

a surge of aurors through the wide-open door—

wolves shouting, disapparating—

I collapsed to the ground—

my hands flew to my neck—

 _had he—?_

Then, Remus. He rushed toward me, the fastest I'd ever seen anyone move, his hands grasping for my neck, pushing my hair away—

"Cora, my god, Cora, did Greyback—did he—"

No. He hadn't had the chance. Remus' index and middle fingers ran the length of my carotid, the smooth unbroken skin that remained there.

I was still human.

"Oh my god, Cora—"

I didn't have the chance to move, or react—he kissed me. His hands pressed against both sides of my face and held me there, upright, as his lips moved against mine. Softer than I'd imagined, but firm, consuming. I could feel the residual adrenaline pumping through both of us; my body was limp against his, the relief so great, so strong. The tears on his cheeks became mine, tears of fear mingling with tears of relief.

* * *

"CORA!" My father's panicked shout came from the hall. Remus and I broke apart; I only had the briefest chance to look wonderingly into his eyes before he squeezed my hand and leapt up, pulling me shakily onto my own two feet again.

Kingsley Shacklebolt approached us, my father walking very quickly in his wake. Dad's robes were torn, his silver hair disheveled, and he appeared to be limping, but he looked otherwise whole. He embraced me.

I heard Kingsley talking in an undertone with Remus—from the sound of it, Remus had had the chance to send a Patronus off to the Ministry and an emergency reserve of aurors was dispatched almost immediately. Greyback's crew was, as I'd thought, mostly very young and easy to handle from a distance, as this rendered their enhanced strength useless and they were woeful duellers. The aurors had managed to arrest a few, but Greyback had escaped.

"There is one thing I have to tell you," Kingsley said seriously as Dad released me. I looked from him to Remus nervously. All the blood had drained from Remus' face, as if he already knew what was coming.

"Someone was bitten."


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, drwatsonn and and LoveFiction2019!

* * *

" _You know I've appreciated your department's help. But if I may say so, I've found you humans really only offer assistance when it's convenient for you. And we don't stop needing help just because you stop wanting to give it."_

— _Subject 27_

* * *

St. Mungo's was colder than I remembered. During training for my current position I'd been required to escort the victim of a werewolf attack to the bite ward on the first floor of the hospital. I was eighteen. It was abundantly clear to me that this was just one more in a long line of tests to see if I could actually handle the job—observing the wolves and keeping their records was one thing, but it was another entirely to deal with the real-life victims. Little did they know I'd spent a year in close proximity to a werewolf. Stigma did not exist for me. I knew I could do it; this was the only job I wanted.

It was true that I could handle the condition itself, but I was not prepared for the girl's despair. Naked on her face as they wheeled her in. There'd been an accident, a mistake: she'd been bitten by her lover. The details were unclear. I held her hand until they pushed me back, wouldn't let me go any further, and then I stood there in the waiting room all night long, memorizing the distinct patterns on the couch, the pillows. I would not abandon her.

Early that morning it became clear she was going to make it. A healer came out and said, "She doesn't want to see you. She doesn't want to see anyone." And that was it: I had to leave. It was the last time I ever saw or heard from her, though I still remember her name. I've never forgotten a survivor's name.

Violet. Her name was Violet.

* * *

The three of us had just entered that same lobby: my father, Remus, and me. Kingsley had returned to the Ministry to supervise the booking and interrogation of the few members of Greyback's crew they'd managed to catch. As soon as we arrived Remus rushed off for more information: we were still unclear on _who_ had been bitten, and there wasn't currently enough research on non-full-moon bites to know what the effects would be if the victim lived. I helped Dad sit down on the sofa: he'd been most affected by the news. He was ashenfaced, his skin the color of snow. He was clutching that golden pendant he always wore around his neck.

He whispered something unintelligible; his voice cracked.

"What, Dad?"

"I'll have to pull support," he said again, louder, hollowly. My heart sank; the bottom fell out of my stomach.

"Wait, Dad, no—"

"Cora, think about it. We can't amend legislation to make the life of a monster like _that_ easier—" He wasn't looking at me. "You understand."

I did not. I was outraged. To have one wolf—Fenrir Greyback, at that—to have his behavior speak for all of his species—that they would all suffer because of just one of their number's actions—

Remus came back out at that moment and spared my father my response.

"He didn't make it," he said blankly. His tone was hollow and disassociated.

We looked up at him from the couch, my father and I, as if from a great distance. My father looked as if he might faint.

"Who… who was it?"

Remus said a name then, one I was surprised to realize I recognized. It was one of the Wizengamot members from our committee meeting in December. The man Remus had shown his teeth.

"I—I have to go to the office," Dad croaked, and then disapparated. Remus looked at me, his gaze a mix of questions and fear, and I just fixed my eyes on the bloodstain on his collar and held that gaze, steadily, desperately trying to ignore the sensation that something was slipping away from me.

* * *

The man who died was named Alexander Ajax. He'd had white hair, gray eyes, and nine grandchildren. He would never again brush that hair, open those eyes, or kiss the foreheads of those nine boys and girls. Alexander Ajax would never do anything at all.

The next day I took the morning edition of the Daily Prophet with me to Will's lab on the top floor. I saw the mess before I saw him, upon first opening the door: ingredients strewn haphazardly across the counters, shards of broken glass scattered on the floor, various dented cauldrons tipped on their sides throughout the room. Will looked flustered and exhausted, sitting on the floor in the middle of it all, his black potions robes even more stained than usual.

I made a point of saying nothing, stepping gingerly through the mess until I reached a miraculously untouched stool.

"Good morning," Will said in a tone that suggested very much otherwise. I saw a pile of cans in the sink behind him and something clicked for me suddenly.

"Did you come straight here from the party last night?"

I'd never seen him like this. He seemed to be on the verge of tears. "They were so cruel… so brutal… I've got to stop them, Cora. I've got to."

I folded up the paper and tucked it into the pocket of my robes. "You _will_ , Will, you're doing a great job."

"I'm _not!_ " he shouted, throwing a metal spoon angrily onto the tile floor. It clattered and then lay still. "I've stalled. I'm making no progress. I'm going _backward_."

I took a stab at a soothing tone. "You still have ti—"

"Don't you think there's a reason no one's cured lycanthropy yet?" he continued angrily. "And now, with your big werewolf law assembly canceled—"

"Where'd you hear that?" I said sharply.

"Two men were talking about it on the lift when I rode up." He turned away. "Don't you get it? If the laws don't change, that means the responsibility to make everything better for them falls totally to me. And I _can't_. I can't. It's too hard. It can't be done!"

"Will, I know you, I've read about your work," I persisted desperately. "You work _best_ under pressure, I know it, that's why I picked you, you've succeeded under supposedly impossible deadlines—"

"But that's what this is: impossible!" He pushed something else off the counter, something glass this time; it shattered upon contact with the floor. "Don't you get it, Cora? They were probably laughing when they gave you that grant. Just did it to make themselves look good. It's all about tricking constituents into thinking they care. Nobody has ever expected me to succeed. Nobody ever expected this to work."

I got up from the stool and tried to move toward him, but he lifted an arm behind him and waved me away.

"Please… please just go."

I told him to take the day off and get some sleep. On the lift back down to my floor I decided Margaret should do the same.

And when she held the memo soberly out to me upon my return, its wings long and tapered and unmistakably my father's, I already knew what it would say.

* * *

"What is _this_?"

I'd just burst into my father's office, his memo crumpled into a ball in my hand. One of the wings ripped off and spun down to the floor, a crash landing.

His secretary cast me a terrified look—she must've only been a few years older than me. Dad came out of the next room, an expression of unambiguous exhaustion on his face. I waved the memo around, waiting.

"Take a break, Anne," he nodded at the young witch tiredly. She didn't need telling twice, not even pausing to grab her coat as she took off past me. Dad turned back to face me.

"What is it, Cora, I have a huge case backlog—"

"You canceled the assembly." First Will's tantrum of futility about the cure… and now this… all the work we'd done, all these months… "You're a bloody coward. I thought I finally had you on my side, I thought we were making progress—"

"Cora, a man is _dead_ ," he said tonelessly. "Of course now's not the time to gather the whole Wizengamot together to make things easier for—"

"It's stupid! It's faulty logic! Greyback isn't bad because he's a werewolf, he's bad because he's _Greyback_. Because of the choices he's made. Being bitten doesn't automatically make you evil." My temper was rising again. "In fact we _all_ make choices, Dad. You've made choices, too."

"Cora, I don't have time to argue with you—"

"You've put innocent men in prison, Dad, for _years_." My rage flashed; he stopped in his tracks, his back to me. "Without trials. You and Crouch. Why don't we ever talk about that? Sirius Black and others like him—you've got a history of unfair condemnation, but you can end it now, here, _please_ , Dad, if you just reschedule the assembly, there's still time—"

He spun, an anger I'd never seen before flashing wildly in his eyes. "Why don't you ever understand when someone is trying to _protect_ you, girl?" he spat. "What a thankless goddamn society I've spent all these years working for. I've been putting Death Eaters in prison for years, Cora, locking up predators—why does it matter how they get there?"

"Because some of them don't belong there, Dad! You can't just ignore the law whenever it suits you!" I was fighting back tears. "You can't condemn an entire group of people like this… it's not fair—"

"Fair? Fair?!" His face was reddening. "You're a _child_ , Cora. You know what isn't fair? Do you even know how many of us died during the First Wizarding War? A regular topic of conversation was whether there would even _be_ a new generation of witches and wizards. That was the fear you were born into. A question of survival. I remember the maternity ward in St. Mungo's—almost empty, barren, nurses wandering around like purposeless ghosts. An entire group of people almost died out. _We_ almost died out. And you dare to be upset because I locked up those who were responsible?"

"Some of them were, yes," I said slowly. "But you can't deny that you built your career on punishing the innocents during that time as well."

He made a move as if to cup my face in his hand. "You're my daughter." His voice broke. "I was trying to make the world a safer place for you."

I raised my chin, looked him in the eye. "It's never going to be safe, Dad. But we can make it _better_."

* * *

Remus and I met at the Leaky Cauldron that night. I was fuming, exhausted, and as soon as I saw him I knew he felt the same—who could sleep, after all, after the news we'd gotten at St. Mungo's? After the news that everything we'd done might've been erased in a single night by Greyback? Greyback, who'd already ruined Remus' life once.

He was already there, at a small table in the corner of the pub, nursing a drink of something alcoholic—unusual for him. I walked to the table very quickly, without stopping at the bar first, so I didn't have to clock the suspicious gazes of other patrons. An act of terror had occurred last night, perpetrated by a werewolf. The community was on high alert.

"Let's make this quick, Cora," he said as I sat down, and I could tell immediately that this meeting would be very different from what I'd expected.

I took a breath and told him what I'd come to tell him. "The Wizengamot canceled the assembly to hear our proposed law changes."

"So we're back to square one, you're saying," Remus responded curtly. "I'm not surprised." I saw a server hovering a few feet from our table, obviously trying to decide whether she should approach us. I wondered if she was afraid because of what Remus was, or because of the look on his face, which scared even me a little. Dark, hopeless.

"Well, fine," he said resolutely, before I could respond. He downed the rest of his beer and set the glass firmly back on the tale between us, empty. "Maybe we should take a break from all this, Cora. Maybe it's for the best."

"What—where is this coming from?" I'd expected an odd conversation, some level of discomfort—we hadn't even discussed the kiss since it had happened, in the rush from my dad's to the hospital—there hadn't been time, but this was so much worse than I'd expected.

"Why did I think I could be happy?" Remus murmured. He kept shaking his head, looking resolute in a way that frustrated me, as if he'd already accepted his fate, his bad fortune, all of it. "I mean I was right from the beginning, Cora. Getting involved with me wasn't good for you. I should never have asked you for help. And now—a man's dead because of me. People are dying because I let my guard down."

The server was gone, had likely heard enough of Remus' tone to understand she should make herself scarce.

"You know, not _everything_ is your fault, believe it or not," I said bluntly. "We've talked about this—you aren't responsible for the actions of all werewolves. Greyback's a bad guy, who's made bad decisions—"

"—and he wouldn't have been there at all if not for me," Remus finished. "If it hadn't been a bloody _werewolf_ party."

This was the most distant I'd felt from him since his disappearance. He was already slipping away again, right in front of me. I opened my mouth to attempt to draw him back and then he spoke again.

"I can't protect you, Cora."

I was indignant. "I never asked—"

"You didn't have to." He wasn't looking at me, but rather out the window to his left. He could have reached out and touched the pane if he wanted, the glass separating him from the outside world. London was cold and dark tonight.

"Someone lost their life because I stupidly got caught up in my feelings," he continued. "I ran to you instead of the person in the most danger, because I couldn't be objective. And now that man is dead. It's like I said from the beginning—we should have remained separate."

"There were so many of them," I said desperately. "You had no way of knowing—"

"Don't you _understand_? Greyback went after you _because_ you were important to me. The whole thing was a game to him—guess my motivations, see if he could predict what I'd do. And he was right." He was still talking in that same, steady, flat voice, which frightened me. It seemed he'd already made up his mind. And just like that, he stood up. Threw some change down on the table.

"Wh-where are you going?"

He seemed to have forgotten I was still there at all; he looked closer at me in surprise. "There's one more thing I can try," he said, more to himself than to me. "Just one more."

He stalked across the room, every pair of eyes following him—including mine—and disappeared into the rain. The doors blew open behind him, and a chill began to creep its way into my bones.

* * *

Attempt #0

I don't know. I don't know if it's possible.

Maybe they're all just doomed.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Thanks brittannes, LoveFiction2019, and a kind guest reviewer!

* * *

" _I live in fear of losing myself."_

— _Subject 45_

* * *

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the dementors. A spectral presence encroaching on the edges of every memory I have of that year—each sunny day, each moment of joy, the hard ones too. Every time I thought I'd forgotten the feeling of loss, they were there to bring it back to me.

I hated them. But I hated what they did to Remus even more.

He was usually the kind to bear his symptoms in silence, both in the case lycanthropy and the guards of Azkaban. But I do remember one night walking back from Hogsmeade, when I found the courage to ask him about how they made him feel.

The night was black and starless. We were almost to the gates and one had drifted very close to our path—it was obvious that neither of us was Sirius Black, but as the year went on it seemed these creatures cared less and less about distinguishing the difference. Remus quickened his stride as the dementor drifted past—lingering, hungry. Remus pulled out his wand to begin the process of disenchanting the protections on the door, which only the teachers were versed in, and I noticed that his hands were shaking.

"What do they remind you of?" I asked softly. "When the dementors get close to you. Is there something—"

The movement of his wand ceased and he looked over at me, his eyebrows furrowed, as if considering whether or not to share the truth. The clouds shifted and a shaft of moonlight found him, wandering over his hair, face, and shoulders. As if some lunar entity was reaching down to caress him, claim him, remind him of what he was.

"I think of Greyback," Remus said, with the flat tone he only used when trying not to betray his true emotions. "The night he bit me."

The mechanism of the door's lock released, and we went inside.

* * *

I remained in the Leaky Cauldron for some time after Remus left. I stared into my drink and wondered how everything could have gone so wrong so quickly—Will, my father, now Remus too. There'd been a part of me that had hoped—after all those nights on the stoop at Grimmauld Place—and his kiss—that maybe—

But I couldn't let myself think of that too long. After I'd drained my glass and consequently worn out my welcome—Tom started to put the chairs up on the tables around me, his mouth a tight line—I realized I had to make a decision about my next move. The office, I thought blindly, intentionally overlooking the fact that there was no longer an assembly to prepare for, nor a Greyback timeline to track. All I knew was that I didn't want to go home.

When I stepped outside it wasn't quite raining. A heavy mist hung on the air around me. I pulled my robes tighter around my shoulders and was preparing to disapparate when something popped somewhere in the dark, on my left. Margaret stumbled into me out of nowhere, panting. I stared.

"Cora, the forest. Lupin. You have to go."

"What?"

Her clothes and hair were disheveled, her brown eyes wide and very close to mine. I'd never seen her afraid before. She put her hands on her knees and leaned forward, still gasping for air. Blood flowed freely from her right hand; the top part of her index finger was missing. I reached for her.

"Margaret, you splinched—"

She pushed me away violently.

"Don't worry about me, Cora!" she cried. "There's no time! Go—you have to _go_!"

* * *

I couldn't escape the feeling, after I arrived, that it was already too late.

The trees blocked the sky almost completely—as if someone had pulled a blanket over the world, allowing in only the smallest patches of light. I dug my hand instinctively into the pocket of my robes and found nothing but air. My stomach lurched as I replayed the places I'd been that day: home, work, my father's office, the pub. I'd left my wand behind.

Panic rising in my throat, I briefly considered going back. But that was when I heard the laughter, giddy and high-pitched. Familiar.

I crept closer to the sound as it stretched on, hiding behind thick tree trunks as I moved, beginning to recognize the very same clearing where I'd found Remus months prior. Now he and Greyback slowly came into view, standing mere feet apart, kicking up great clouds of dirt with every move. Remus was holding his wand out in front of him with one shaky hand.

"I remember you, Lupin," and the sound of his name in Greyback's mouth was indecent, somehow, wrong. "Do you know, you were lucky, really. I was just trying to teach your dad a lesson, and you were the one who benefited."

"Don't talk about my father," Remus said in a low voice I'd never heard before. They were circling each other, a dance of predator and prey, slow sideways movements.

"You keep talking about what we have like it's something good, something I'm just misunderstanding," Remus said, "but I know you know the truth. It's why you're still trying to punish them, after all these years. You're bitter. You see the way they treat us."

"Because they're _jealous_ , Lupin," Greyback said. "The humans are afraid of us because they know we're stronger than them. And so they take away our jobs and our homes, our freedom. I know a lot about them, you know; I was one of them once, and I can still remember it."

Remus' eyes narrowed.

"You have to learn about your prey, Lupin. They only treat us this way because they're scared." Greyback cocked his head. " _You're_ scared. You shouldn't be. You've learned that behavior, you know. They've forced it on you, the fear. You weren't afraid that night." He laughed again. "Quiet boy, you were. A good one. Accepted what was coming to you."

Remus raised his wand in a jagged, sudden movement. They were close enough now that when he pointed it at Greyback's heart, it almost grazed the other man's chest. Greyback didn't flinch, only continued to look at him steadily, ready to call Remus' bluff.

"Don't talk about it," Remus breathed, so I had to strain to hear him. "Don't talk about what you did to me."

"You just don't want to hear someone else say it," Greyback said. There was a smile on his face that made my skin crawl. Sharp teeth I remembered feeling on my throat. They were the brightest thing about his face; they lit his mouth, drew attention to it, so you couldn't help taking in every word.

"This is why they like me, Lupin, the boys I bite and take away. I put words to what they already know about themselves. What I knew when I bit you, that night."

They were still circling each other, slowly, but to Greyback it seemed like a game, this easy movement.

"I _helped_ you," he said earnestly. "You're so close to embracing that part of yourself, the capacity for violence, for strength. You could come with me, Lupin, you'd be accepted, you'd be a leader. I could tell back then, you know, that you were special." He grinned again. "There was always something about you that made you like me."

"You're wrong!" Remus said, but he seemed flustered, thrown off. I felt embarrassed to be hearing any of this. It felt like a private conversation between two people who'd been enemies since childhood, since birth. I knew if I could sense Remus' unsteadiness, Greyback could too.

"It changed the way he looked at you, didn't it?" Greyback said in an offhand way. "Your father. Or maybe you can't even remember how he looked at you before—"

"Don't _talk_ about my father—"

"If you'd come with me then, if I'd had the chance to take you before he ran me off—" Greyback shook his head— "You could now _,_ Lupin, you could be a king among wolves, it isn't too late, you could—"

"I'll _never_ —"

"It's okay to admit you like it—the power, the feeling of control—"

"I'd rather be weak than join you, I'd rather be an outsider—"

Greyback advanced eagerly, Remus jumped back.

"You'll have to face it, Greyback, I'm taking you in—"

"Not alive, my boy—" and then he lunged, finally, knocking Remus horizontal with a force I'd never seen in a human. They were airborne, briefly, and then hit the grass and dirt and leaves with a loud thud—Remus groaned—then they were fighting, tearing at each other, nails and blood and flesh. I followed the movement of their hands with my eyes, and the flashes of curled fingers and closed fists made me realize Greyback must have knocked Remus' wand out of his hand. I searched the dark ground desperately with my eyes, trying to block out Remus' cries of pain—if I could just get to his wand, if I could hex Greyback— _impedimenta_ , or _incarcerous_ —we could take him in—or maybe—I pictured fleetingly, desperately, a green flash of light—

And then Remus screamed. My eyes swung back to him. It was a howl of pain—inhuman, animal—and Greyback was smiling, pulling back. He was above Remus, he'd dug his claws deep through his chest, I saw the blood, the tatters of his shirt—what could I do, what could I do?

But then—I don't know where the strength came from, some deep reserve inside of him—

"I _hate_ you!" Remus cried. He swung his entire body upward, onto his legs, knocking Greyback off balance, and then with all his might swung his fist into Greyback's cheek. Greyback went down, and Remus straddled his chest, continuing the barrage with knuckles fast becoming bloody and broken—

I saw my chance, I ran to him. And as I grew closer, I'll never forget what I heard—

"I hate you, I _hate_ you—"

The cries of a little boy, a childhood lost, the cries of the loneliest man—

Greyback was unconscious from the pure physical force of the assault—I knelt beside him, next to the other man's body, and Remus turned his face to mine—his cheeks were wet with tears—I reached out, reached for him, but he fought me—he didn't seem to recognize me—

"No—NO! Leave me here, leave me, let me die, he ruined me, he ruined me years ago—"

I grabbed him by his shoulders, though he fought me still, and we disapparated.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Thank you Kacey, drwatsonn, LoveFiction2019, and belanoukweasley for your lovely reviews! You were all so sweet; glad to hear everyone's enjoying.

* * *

" _You don't black out. You're conscious of every terrible thing you do, and you don't even have the relief of forgetting it all in the morning. I can still picture the face of every person I've ever hurt. And the man I killed, too: I see his face."_

— _Subject 56_

* * *

St. Mungo's again.

The waiting room again.

The pattern of the couch pillows, the jarring quiet of the room.

A healer said they'd send someone out when they knew. The blood loss, she'd said. A cause for concern.

No one had come out yet. That meant they didn't know.

Once every half-hour I got up and walked around the little room, practicing breathing exercises. One of the healers had suggested this after witnessing my first panic attack of the evening not long after I pulled Remus' broken body through the glass doors.

 _Inhale for four, hold for seven, exhale for eight._

I mapped my steps to the inhales and the exhales. I tried to lose myself in the patterns around me. The Calming Draught had helped a little. The same healer had come out with one a few hours later, after I threw myself against the door, sobbing hysterically, begging them to fix him, to make it better, to take me instead.

It wasn't supposed to be touch and go like this. Not for people like us. Magic was supposed to fix everything.

Dad arrived around three in the morning. I don't know how he knew I was there, although I vaguely remembered showing my identification when I brought Remus in, moaning, bloody, incoherent. He'd continued to rave as they pulled him through the double doors, to the place beyond, where I could not follow, still protesting.

 _Ruined, ruined, I'm ruined—_

Dad found me and sat beside me. I wondered at the isolation of the bite ward waiting room, how every time I was here it seemed I knew the only person in the entire wizarding world who was hurt. I was alone in my grief and the room, all of it _—_ but was it grief, yet, if we didn't know whether Remus was dead or alive?

I cried into my father's shoulder anyway. He seemed to welcome it, the chance to be useful after the fight we'd had only hours prior—had it been so recent? It went on like this: the crying, the standing, the walking, the breathing. The rest of the night we sat there, my father and I, waiting for news.

And sometime around sunrise Dad turned to me, opened up that gold locket I'd come to equate with the comfort of his presence. A single window in the wall behind him framed his head in a soft golden glow as he offered me a deep, sad smile. My eyes trailed next to his hands, where a small portrait lay framed against his chest.

It was a picture from my childhood: a baby I almost didn't recognize, who I dimly understood to be myself. I gazed in mute amazement at this tiny, happy version of me, as she giggled and pawed at the frame in her white dress, looking winningly up at my father, who smiled down at this tiny portrait girl with a look on his face I'd only seen a handful of times before. Her eyes were lavender.

My hand went instinctively to the edge of my own eye, the iris now a soft blue. They must have faded over time, I realized. The picture must have been taken before then. Before my mother left.

"I've worn this your whole life," he told me. "Even in the years I didn't speak to you. Didn't see you. I don't know what it's worth, or how much it matters now—" he sighed shakily—"but I want you to know that I'm proud of you. And I'm sorry for the things I said earlier today—yesterday—whatever." He shook his head. "I've let myself forget justice. Become too concerned with my reputation. No more. I _promise_ , this time—" he bit his lip—"that I'll do everything I can to help you. Help them. Your—Remus—he didn't deserve this. None of them do."

I found that I could not speak; I was still staring at the tiny version of myself dangling there from his neck: so small, so hopeful, those beautiful eyes. He closed the locket gently and tucked it back into the folds of his robes, breaking my gaze at last.

"And this Remus, Cora—" he paused briefly—"he's a good man, isn't he?"

There was a soft creak behind me, the opening of a door, and a healer gently said, "He can see you now."

* * *

It was so horrible to see him lying there in the hospital bed that my instinct was to turn around and walk out. I resisted. He looked so small, so crumpled, the blood still dried in places on his face and fingers. I was reminded of what he must have looked like as a child, the day after he was bitten. Small and hopeless and defeated, so much pain.

We had the room to ourselves, at least—there seemed to be no other werewolf victims in the region at the present moment, mirroring the emptiness of the waiting room, which was its own dark kind of relief—no names to add the registry, or the list of casualties. I crossed the room hesitantly. Remus' eyes were open but he had not yet addressed me, as if he was afraid to.

He was in a hospital gown that hung open at the chest, so I could see the thick swirls of hair that grew there, but also the deep gashes that Greyback had carved into his body which could not be healed with magic, which I knew would leave scars. Someone had washed most of the blood from his hands but traces still remained on the backs of his fingers, a dark rusty red now hardened into the skin, staining it. I rubbed at the blood instead of meeting his gaze. I knew he was looking at me wearily, with an expression on his face I had not seen since the day of the boggart attack.

"Were you afraid?" he asked in a low voice.

Of course I'd been afraid.

Being so close again, to a predator I'd spent years studying, and then of course there'd been the matter of Remus, the violence I'd witnessed from the very last person I'd ever expected to enact it, the way he didn't recognize me in the instant before disapparation. That may have been the most frightening thing of all.

"No."

He frowned, not in an angry or suspicious way, but in a way that implied he was trying to figure me out. He pulled on my hand, so the rest of my body followed and I was standing as close to him as I possibly could, so that my hips were grazing his ribs.

"You're lying," he said, and then he reached out with the hand not holding mine, wound his fingers through the hair at the nape of my neck, and pulled my face to his. I'd been afraid I'd taste copper on his lips, a reminder of the violence and self-hatred I'd witnessed just hours prior, but there was nothing like that. Only him.

After a moment he released me, kissed my upper lip and each corner of my mouth before pulling away. And for the first time I saw no uncertainty in his eyes, only a brash, irreverent confidence. He opened his mouth to speak, but I held up a hand.

"Wait, Remus. I have to tell you something." I swallowed, the truth of his forest encounter clinging to the insides of my mouth, my throat—I was afraid to speak it, afraid what he would say, but I knew I had to.

"They found Greyback in the forest."

He stared at me unblinkingly, waiting. My voice trembled slightly.

"Remus, they found his body."

"Whose?"

And I thought next of what the healer said, some memory loss possible, and I wondered fleetingly if this was better, if I should leave it all alone and let him carry on not knowing. Only for a moment.

"You know who, Remus." I cleared my throat.

He blinked. "They found his _body_ …"

"He bled out. He… he died in the forest before the aurors found him." I hadn't been sure how he'd take the news, and now watched him nervously.

"I… I killed someone," Remus said slowly.

"Not directly," I amended. But he wasn't listening.

"I've never killed anyone before." He wasn't looking at me, wasn't looking at anything, really, just staring blankly out at the wall across from his bed.

"It was Greyback, Remus. Everyone knows you were only defending yourself. And… I was there, too. I saw it all."

"Everything?" He was clenching and unclenching his hands, looking at them as if he was seeing them for the first time. I couldn't answer and so reached out and covered one of those hands with my own, the swollen knuckles, and we sat there together in uncomfortable, contemplative silence. I knew Remus was thinking about what he'd done.

"He was the wolf who bit you, maybe it's for the best—"

"Sometimes I wonder, though, Cora, if he ever would've been like _that_ —how he was—if he hadn't been bitten all those years ago." Remus swallowed. "Maybe he never had a chance. And now he's dead. We'll never know."

"He was killing _children_ , Remus." The werewolf casualty list flashed through my head, all those names—"You've got to have perspective—"

He looked up, at last, and I saw his face was streaked with tears.

"Yes, but he got what he wanted in the end, didn't he?" Remus croaked. "Now there's blood on _my_ hands, too."

He looked beyond me. "And I'll have to live with that. I'll never forget him, for two reasons now instead of one. And I'll have to find my own way to make peace with what I've done."


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Shoutout this week to Amariel and LoveFiction2019 for their reviews! And thanks as always, all of you, for following, favoriting, and reading.

* * *

"… _But there are good days. I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I've had days that are good."_

— _Subject 77_

* * *

I took vacation for the first time since I'd started work at the Ministry. I knew I needed to be with Remus as he recovered. It was a time of limbo, just he and I alone in Grimmauld Place for a period of two weeks. We didn't go out; we didn't leave. The old house creaked and groaned around us, like a thing alive.

A gray mist hung over London every morning to greet me through the windows, a soupy fog that hid every passerby from view. I rolled sleepily awake in my still and quiet bedroom and always spent a minute staring out at the city before I got up to make breakfast: usually heaping plates of bacon and eggs for two, sometimes a serving of fresh fruit with just one bowl of oats.

Remus spent most of his time alone those first few days. I'd come into his bedroom—it appeared to be a teen boy's, decorated with posters of nearly nude Muggle women, though I never asked who had lived here before. More often than not I found him staring out the window the same way that I did every morning, as if he was looking for answers, waiting for the fog to clear. I changed his bandages with as much cheer as I could muster, usually babbling on about whatever book I'd been reading or a program that was on the radio. It was hard to tell those first few days, but he seemed to take comfort in the moments of my presence, the normalcy of my dialogue, so I kept it up when we were together and then mostly just left him to his own devices otherwise. I had an instinct left over from our shared moment in the hospital: he'd let me know when he needed me.

Kingsley sent an owl at the end of the first week. Hard to forget the sigh of relief I breathed when I opened the letter and read its contents. I took it straight to Remus—it was late, after midnight, and we'd already said goodnight for the evening, but I knew he'd want to know.

I knocked gently, waited for his soft _come in_ before entering. He was sitting in the center of the plaid bedspread, a book in front of him and a cup of tea steaming on the bedside table. He was wearing a pair of flannel pajama bottoms and no shirt, so I could see where the hair on his chest trailed and tapered below his waistline, past his hips. He didn't seem embarrassed at all, but smiled gently and closed the book. He'd had a softer, or depleted demeanor since we began staying here. I wasn't sure if I should be concerned or relieved.

"I just thought you'd want to know." I cleared my throat. "Kingsley says they won't be charging you. Greyback was a Most Wanted outlaw… they didn't need a trial to rule self-defense. They saw what he did to you."

He nodded. "I suppose we should feel relieved, then."

I leaned against the doorframe. "I suppose we should."

The next words in the exchange should've been _goodnight_ : we could both feel them hovering above the conversation like an ending we'd briefly suspended. But I didn't want to leave, and he wasn't telling me to go.

We looked at each other for a moment that stretched on and I thought of that night at Hogwarts, how I'd hidden in his bedroom during Dumbledore's surprise appearance. How Remus had told me to leave, his voice trembling. Because we'd both known what would happen if I stayed.

"Cora," he said. "Come here."

* * *

The days that followed were better. Idyllic, even. I woke up in Remus' bed each morning, curled into his warmth and lingered there until the soft rumblings of our stomachs finally summoned us from bed. Together we made the coffee, the scrambled eggs, the bacon. His hands found new resting places in the spaces of my body; the kitchen filled with warmth.

From there our days stretched on without structure, welcoming and stressless. We read aloud to each other on the couch, curled under cozy knit blankets; we dragged a Muggle TV out from the bedroom closet and fiddled with the controls till we could watch sports, yelling at the little men kicking around on the screen, rooting for people we knew nothing about.

For the first time, finally, we slept together. And then again, and again, many times after, in every room of that house: his face above mine, or below, unabashed moans, his eyes always open, pressed so closely against me that I could feel every shudder of his body. I tried and failed at baking, while Remus made a batch of chocolate chip cookies—buttery, soft, gooey in the center—that were so perfect and delectable I refused to believe his claim he had made them without magic.

They seemed too good to be true, as every hour of that week did. We let the Daily Prophet pile up on the stoop; we ignored the world. A war had finally begun to rage beyond the door of Grimmauld Place, and we knew that at the end of the week we would have to return to it; that it would likely not be so peaceful and warm and happy for some time to come. Years, even. Or ever, maybe.

So we pretended the rest of the world away and for that week only he and I existed, no one and nothing else.


	23. Chapter 23

A/N: Thanks Amariel, jigglyhuff, LoveFiction2019, and rejolu for your reviews!

* * *

" _The future is what keeps me alive. Either a cure will happen in my lifetime or the laws will change to make things easier. I have to keep that hope. Otherwise, I have nothing."_

— _Subject 99_

* * *

Margaret said nothing of the flush in my cheeks my first day back, which I was quietly grateful for. Remus had left me in bed hours earlier that morning, with significant reluctance and a series of kisses, both on my face and elsewhere. He had another mission for the Order—just a few days—but he'd be gone, and I had to return to work, to salvage what I could in the wake of the Greyback fiasco. We parted with difficulty, but also a quiet thrill of anticipation for our next, now inevitable reunion.

I hadn't known what state to expect the office in, and so was pleasantly surprised: Margaret had finished the floor-to-ceiling deep clean, and everything was shinier and more welcoming than I could remember it being in the last three years. I'd later find our files ordered chronologically, the interviews alphabetized, new lights finally installed in the interview room. There was a cup of tea cooling on my desk, which I sipped gratefully as I took a seat. I turned to her, my begrudging assistant, and realized that on top of all this, she'd also saved Remus' life. I was so overwhelmed by the consequent rush of gratitude that I couldn't immediately think of what to say. _Thanks_ seemed incredibly, woefully insufficient.

"I'm taking the rest of the day off," she said abruptly, standing with a gentle smirk on her face. She was wearing a rather spectacular gold leather trench coat over her usual all-black ensemble, and I thought, fleetingly, that she looked like some kind of angel, or a saint—even as she packed up her things to leave a mere hour after the Ministry business day had begun. Her finger, I saw, was still missing its tip.

"Margaret—" I started, but she turned and cut me off.

"You don't have to thank me, Cora," she said. "Really."

There weren't many things that made Margaret uncomfortable, but emotional exchanges appeared to be one of the few. I should've left it, but I couldn't help myself—the question I'd had since our encounter outside the Leaky Cauldron burst out of me regardless.

"What did you see that night?"

She paused, frozen, her injured hand resting absently on the chair she'd spent the last year sitting in. I thought for a moment she was about to yell at me, shut me down, tell me that this was an inappropriate question for someone who could See. But she just looked at me, something unidentifiable coming over her, warming her brown eyes.

"I saw you save him," she said. "And Seers can't change the future, so I guess I was always going to tell you where he was. And he was always going to live." She shrugged, averting her gaze. "Look, I'm glad you're both okay. But don't make it sentimental, Cora. I was just doing my job."

I hid my smile and warmed my hands around the tea she'd made me as she swung the chain link strap of her purse over her shoulder, clearing her throat pointedly as she strode toward the door.

"Oh, and I put in for an extension on my assignment here," she added, not bothering to turn around. "You clearly still need my help."

* * *

After Margaret left a calm passed over the office like I'd never experienced before. It was remarkable not to hear the mechanical hum of the lift, or chattering in the hall, or the usual hubbub of other departments opening and closing, doors swinging on their hinges, letting slip the laughter and words and magic from within their confines. It was both peaceful and unnerving.

I sat at my desk, swiveling gently in my wooden chair with the missing armrest, and for once I did not get up to grab a file, or prep the interview room, or do anything at all. I just sat and soaked in the stillness, looked round our dingy little office and really seeing it for the first time: the white walls, the oak floor, all of it finally free of the grime that had built up in the three years since I'd first taken my position. And I realized, with a modicum of surprise, that I didn't know what I was going to do next.

This was when I heard the footsteps. Though they weren't steps so much as discordant, unrhythmic pounds and thuds; I heard a male gasp of surprise and then a greater thud as an entire body fell to the ground, murmured cursing and spluttering as the man got to his feet and continued. The sounds seemed to be getting louder, and by the time I'd stood up to peek through the office doorway Will was already standing in it, panting, eyes wide and frenzied, and he was holding a sloshing deep purple vial in his hands.

"I did it," he said breathlessly.

It seemed a distinct possibility that he had not slept since I'd last seen him, two weeks prior. His hair was greasy and unkempt, his robes stained and crusted with ingredients almost beyond recognition, and I had never seen him happier. He held the vial out to me, still panting, and I took it uncertainly from him. He began to pace back and forth in front of me, gesticulating in his excitement.

"It's stable. It didn't explode. It's the right color. Brewed on the right day. Everything works. Everything fits!" He stopped moving in midstep and cast me a sidelong, hesitant look. "There is… one thing, though…"

In the last sixty flustered seconds I'd begun to allow myself hope, even a flash of triumph, but now my heart began to sink as Will faced me, looking moderately less excited now and a little bit apologetic. "What is it?" I asked.

"Well… I'm sorry, Cora," he said. "But… there's one ingredient I finally got hold of a week ago. That I may not have told you about. It's… a bit black-market," he admitted, spreading his hands. "Not strictly illegal! But very, very regulated. I knew we wouldn't have been able to afford it on our budget, so I went about getting it by… other means."

He resumed pacing, as if not to let this admission deter him. "It's really not that big a deal; now that I know it works we have the grounds to obtain it legally, through proper channels, to reproduce the potion en masse… only thing is…" And here he paused again, staring very hard into the woodgrain of the floor beside me, and I snapped the fingers of the hand that wasn't holding the vial.

"Will, please! What is it?"

"Well," he said, wringing his hands now, "it's a notoriously understudied ingredient, Cora, it has to be prepared in _very_ certain ways and it reacts badly with quite a lot of things—we don't know them all yet, we're still testing and learning. Usually… usually someone gets sick and that's how we find out—"

"What does that mean for the cure, Will?" I pressed, my heart in my throat.

"We need a guinea pig, Cora," he finally said. The pacing ceased and he was now standing motionless in front of me, apologetic, palms out. "We just don't _know_ yet how it'll interact with wolfsbane. They've never studied its effects on werewolves before, since they've never been very high priority."

"What are you saying?" I gripped the vial so tightly I thought it might break.

"It might cure him, yes," Will said slowly. "But there's a chance it could kill him, too."


	24. Chapter 24

A/N: Thanks LoveFiction2019, prongslittleflower, and Amariel for your reviews! Thought I should also mention that this is the second-to-last chapter; steel yourselves accordingly.

* * *

"… _and people like me have nothing if we don't have hope."_

— _Subject 99_

* * *

I knew Remus Lupin was not afraid of death.

In fact I knew all kinds of things about him that I shouldn't have. I'd asked him what it felt like to change, I'd eavesdropped on his transformation, I'd opened trunks and entered bedrooms and knocked down every boundary he'd so carefully constructed between the two of us.

My discovery came early in seventh year—September, still—and very late at night. I'd had an unsettling dream about my mother and was wandering aimlessly around the castle after curfew, actually half-hoping I'd run into Filch or Mrs. Norris. Trouble would be distracting. Get me out of my own head.

So when I happened upon Remus and Nearly Headless Nick I wasn't in a hurry to run. I heard him before I reached the corner of the third floor hall and peeked around it curiously. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was curled up in the window seat at the end of it, his feet pushed up against the wall. He looked young in that posture, like another student out of the dorms after hours. Nick was hovering next to him, but Remus wasn't even looking at him, choosing instead to gaze out into the rain.

"I don't _know_ , Remus," Nick was saying. "We don't have that kind of knowledge, the Hogwarts ghosts—all I can tell you is that they didn't choose to linger—"

"I just thought one of them might've hung around as a ghost," Remus said frustratedly, still looking out the window. "James, probably not, but Peter—"

"You were Gryffindors, the four of you," Nick said sadly. "Only those who fear death choose to stay behind, Remus. Say what you will, but I always knew... you were four very brave boys."

"And a lot of good it did us," Remus said scathingly, with a look that silenced whatever Nick might've said next. I thought for a moment the conversation might be over. But then Remus spoke again, more quietly this time, so I had to strain to hear his next words from the end of the hallway.

"I suppose I wouldn't have stayed either. No harm meant, Nick," he added quickly, nodding at the ghost, who soberly bobbed his head in response. "But is it brave to embrace the unknown so whole-heartedly? Or is it foolish?"

* * *

Remus came back to Grimmauld two days later. We made spaghetti for dinner, slicing the tomatoes by hand, mincing the garlic, the scent of our handiwork wafting throughout the flat as we laughed together. I knew, in the back of my mind, that I should tell him about the cure. Remus had the right to know. And he'd be so happy for the chance to test it, after all these years, having forgotten the feeling of true humanity. The risk wouldn't matter. I knew I had to tell him.

But the noodles boiled in the pot and I didn't speak.

We fell asleep together and woke up together and I still had not told him.

The next few days not telling became easier. Fear of the worst kept me silent; I told myself we had waited so long to be happy, and now we were. I just wanted it to last.

Will came to see me after three days had come and gone; he wanted to know when he should expect Remus in the lab. He'd need to be monitored after taking the potion, after all, since the risk of death was so substantial; Will had set up a small cot in the corner of the room and invited me to join him for "observational" purposes as well—he must have realized, as everyone close to me had by this point, the nature of my feelings for Remus.

I lied baldly to Will—my first time ever—and told him Remus was still considering his options. I wondered how long this lie could last.

On the seventh day I came home late. There'd been a backlog of interviews to catch up on and the last man had broken down completely mid-session; I'd had to call a healer to sedate him and he left the office strapped to a gurney after sending the table—with my notes and full ink bottle—flying. I was exhausted, splattered in ink, and not really thinking of anything other than a hot bath.

Remus wasn't in the parlor, his usual haunt, so I pressed on, hoping to greet him before pulling off my stained robes. I found him in the kitchen, sitting at the head of the table as Arthur had so many months ago, a look of deep disappointment cutting a thin line through his brow. I understood immediately that I'd made a mistake in waiting, though I suppose I'd known all along.

"Will came to see me today," he said abruptly, before I could offer even the pretense of a greeting. I lingered in the doorway, fingering a dark splotch on my robes like a bad student, refusing his eye contact.

"Why haven't you said anything?" he prompted. Somehow still patient, as if there could be any good reason.

I found I couldn't open my mouth. I continued to fiddle pointlessly with my robes. In my peripheral vision I could see him leaning forward, frustrated, the hurt rising up in him like a great wave.

"Don't you want me to get better?"

"There's nothing bloody wrong with you!" I burst out. "And I'm not going to apologize for the fact that I'm not willing to let you die on the off chance that we might find a way to cure lycanthropy."

He was on his feet, his body pulsing with anger. "That isn't your choice to make!" he exclaimed. "I thought you understood—this whole time, everything we were doing—we're trying to reach a point where the werewolves can make decisions for themselves. Not so _you_ can make them for me, instead of your father, or Fudge—"

"It's not like that!"

He was right, of course; it was. Whether he chose to take the potion or not, it wasn't my decision to make. I stuttered for a defense.

"You've internalized all their self-hatred—you don't care if you die—you don't understand, Remus, I _care_ , I value this body you've come to hate—"

"That still doesn't mean you can make this decision for me," he repeated pointedly, gripping the back of his chair, white-knuckled. We were standing at opposite ends of the long table, our chests heaving. Both of us wanting so desperately to be right.

When I spoke again, I couldn't keep my voice from shaking.

"I didn't tell you," I began, "because I'd rather live with the wolf than risk losing you forever."

I paused, considering my next words briefly.

The hell with it.

"I love you, Remus."

"I love you too, Cora."

He had not paused, had not hesitated. Even with the weight of our conversation I was able to recognize the swooping, butterfly-like sensation of joy somewhere in the region of my stomach. I wanted to go back in time and shake the shoulders of the girl who had cried for weeks after this man's departure from Hogwarts, tell her to be patient. Wait for what was coming.

"I love you," he said again, slowly. "And that's why I have to do this."

My mind went blank. "I don't understand."

"I'll never be the best version of myself if I have to live with knowing that I didn't take this chance."

Of course I'd known all along he'd say this. It was why I hadn't told him the truth in the first place. There was never really a question. It was never really a choice.

"I have to drink it," he said. "I have to try."

"Remus." Tears welled in the corners of my eyes. I squinted against the ache. "Are you sure?" I was angry at the tears, how I was betraying my vulnerability—my fear, as always, making one last bid for control.

"I'm scared." A cliche. "I don't want to lose you." Another. But still I meant it.

He walked the length of the table, finally, and took me into his arms.

"I know, Cora. I know."


	25. Chapter 25

Please state for the record how you wish to be identified.

 _R, please. Just R._

Thank you. Now, can you first describe the immediate effects of the permanent wolfsbane potion?

 _Well, it made me sleep for a week (laughs)—a literal week! Will said afterward the concentration of the valerian must have mimicked hibernation as my body underwent its changes. Either way, I've never felt so well-rested in my life._

No negative side effects?

 _So far, none. It's only been five weeks, so I'm still being careful, paying attention to my body and all that. But I feel fine._

And what, if any, changes did you undergo on the night of the last full moon?

 _None. Well, I did experience some pain, mostly confined to my arms and legs—Will said this was a possibility, that my body is so used to the transformation every month for the last thirty-plus years that I might feel… I guess a kind of phantom pain, is the only way I can think to put it. But I remained human._

Excellent. Can you talk about the ongoing project you've begun work on with Werewolf Support Services at the Ministry?

 _Sure. Thanks to really generous donations from a fundraising campaign your dad—er, Mr. McClane—spearheaded, we're going to be able to open and operate a fully functional clinic out of the department by the end of the year. We're going to distribute the cure to everyone, for free. Will just wanted to run few more tests, but the final product ended up being much less expensive than initially projected. And we're lucky to have gotten the financial backing we did—I'm still so grateful for that._

Yes, that's—ah—great news. Now I'm just going to ask one more question, about your retrospective thoughts on the condition. For research purposes.

 _Sure. Merlin, Cora, so formal, we're going to miss lunch reservations with your dad—_

(Laughs) Remus, please, just one—

 _Right, okay, sorry. In the name of research! Go ahead._

Thank you! Uh, right then—now that your lycanthropy has been cured, can you share what got you through the years you were afflicted?

 _Oh, that's simple enough—people. The ones in my life who stuck with me, even when I was at my worst._

Can you talk more about these individuals?

 _Sure. My parents, of course, who stood by me through everything. I never doubted their love for me, even after the bite._

 _Dumbledore—he's the one who got me into Hogwarts, made all of these changes and allowances so a werewolf could walk through his doors—and he hired me again, years later, gave me work when I needed it most._

 _My friends from school, James and Sirius, who learned how to transform their own bodies to support me through my monthly changes._

 _The Order of the Phoenix, who collectively welcomed me with an openness and warmth I hadn't experienced since Hogwarts, and gave me purpose I never thought I'd have…_

 _And then, Cora, you know, there's you._

Me?

 _You._

* * *

A/N: This is the ending I've always wanted for Lupin—one where he lives, and can finally learn to love himself again. Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, favorited—your support has meant a lot to me. Thanks for sticking around!


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